Fireblade fightback
If everyone raced standard bikes, which would win? On the evidence of the Superstock 1000 series there’s only one answer: Blade
Though the Honda Fireblade is having variable success in British Superbike (and a right struggle in World Superbike), it’s proving a demon weapon in Superstock 1000, the class where fewer changes are allowed to the standard bike. The Blade you see here has just won the British Superstock title and follows another Blade triumph the year before.
Ok, so we will admit that’s not exactly a fully-fledged trend as yet, but it’s pretty clear that Honda’s CBR1000RR-R is tasty in near-stock form. Davey Todd’s consistency on the Padgett’s-prepared race bike was astonishing, with the 27-year-old getting 11 podiums from 17 races. And his times were barely any slower than the factory Superbike machines – he was generally less than a second slower per lap, and at Thruxton was only 0.3 seconds down on the factory Fireblade BSB bikes.
‘The base machine is absolutely incredible,’ Clive Padgett tells Bike. ‘I’m not knocking any of the European brands but it’s an advantage having that Honda reliability combined with 210bhp. I know things can go terribly wrong and I don’t want to tempt fate, but none of our three bikes have had a mechanical [breakdown] at any round this year. That is astonishing. And for a dealership team like ours to win is a big deal.’ Tom Neave’s win in 2021 was on a factory Blade.
‘It’s our first year back in the championship full time because we’ve been concentrating on the roads for the past few years,’ says Clive, who splits his time between running his Batley dealership and race team. ‘Me and the bunch of mates I go racing with went to Cadwell to an evening test with Honda and we all looked at each other and thought the same thing: “why aren’t we going racing?” So we did the next meeting at Cadwell (last season) and the final five rounds. Then we decided to do a full season with Lewis [Rollo] and Davey.’ There’s been some road racing going on this year too – Todd got the Superstock lap record on this Fireblade at the NW200, and Connor Cummins rode another Padgett’s Blade to become the fastest ever Honda around the Isle of Man when he came second in the Superstock TT behind Peter Hickman. Todd was third. He also won the Armoy Superstock race and set a new lap record and took five wins at the Southern 100.
‘The Blade is incredible… it’s an advantage having that Honda reliability’
‘We had a good season,’ says Clive, somewhat understating matters. ‘For some reason Davey has become known as a roads rider, but we don’t ride on grass on the roads do we? It’s all tarmac. It just took a while for us to put a season together in BSB and as it happened, it all went our way.’
And because Clive is a motorcycle dealer he can sell you an exact replica of Davey Todd’s machine. ‘Yes, anyone can buy one from us. You can choose the budget, depending whether you want the kit electronics, K-tech suspension or whatever. We can build you a Blade for trackday use or for Superstock racing in BSB – whatever level you want. ‘For Davey’s bike we remove the ABS system which isn’t required for racing, but the modern systems are now so, so good. We get no end of trackday lads asking to remove the ABS, but for most of them it would be fine. My advice would be to leave it on.’ Clive doesn’t want to put a price on buying a Davey Todd replica because in reality each bike is tailored to the rider, but we estimate it’s around £35,000 (don’t forget the base CBR1000RR-R is £23,499). For a bike that could – when in the hands of Mr Todd – get within 0.3 seconds a lap of a 240bhp factory Superbike, that sounds like money well spent.