Project TZR......................................
After much begging, bleeding knuckles and chewed nails, Charlie finally went racing.
So, this was it – the culmination of a nine month build, calling in all of the favours I could possibly muster to turn the rolling frame and box of bolts that was languishing at the back of the
Fast Bikes lock up, a mere shadow of Benjamin’s beloved 30-year-old TZR250 2MA, into a race machine. Not content with restoring this bike to former glories the final part of this plan was to take it to Norfolk and race what we had built in the final round of the Yamaha Past Masters (YPM) series, around the Snetterton 300 circuit. Gulp…
For a non-racing, mechanically challenged person like myself with no on-track or road experience of two-stroke machines, this project was hugely ambitious. But with a whole heap of help from friends of Fast Bikes magazine, colleagues and local dealer Phoenix Yamaha of Trowbridge I was in a van, packed to the gunnels with fuel, tyres, warmers, paddock stands, spare suits, helmets, sleeping bag, measuring jugs and tools, with MSV’s Snetterton plumbed into my sat-nav as my destination to see if ‘Project Likely Fail’, would do exactly that, as in, fail!
I arrived at the circuit early evening, laid out my R&G garage mat and rolled the labouring TZR into its position in the pit garage. I say labouring as I arrived with a problem, well, a couple actually that not been helped by the fact I had run out of time and never actually ridden the TZR. Thankfully I had done my research. A run out on the Club Bike (detailed later) had rewarded me with enough time deep in the bosom of la vie YPM to know that they would help me. One person in particular that is – Len Whalin, one of the point men for the YPM and the man that hosts the #100 Club Bike, designed to introduce riders to the TZR racing experience.
It was Thursday night and he got to work immediately on my front wheel, which was binding on the front disc. There were lots of elements that were creating this problem and numerous attempts to right this caused a couple of hours of anguish. As it was, the real problem was running the larger front wheel. The entire paddock runs with a larger rear than standard but few move away from the standard front. I had the foresight to have that with me so to cut a long story short, back in it went. The front now running freely, Len could turn his attention to other things and I continued to prep my TZR for the following day.
As Snetterton is a three day meet there was a full track day before the weekend’s racing, which was imperative to bed in my machine, learn the twists and turns of Snetterton’s infield on the 300 and, of course, test my own limits. I have waxed lyrical about many of the aftermarket parts that I have added to the TZR, but this was the first real test. The initial eye opener was the Domino quick-action throttle that got me up to speed far less gingerly than when using the standard unit.
An obvious statement perhaps, but this was another first for me and as I traversed the circuit for my debut laps on the Friday morning, I struggled to keep the revs down at the 6,000rpm mark. I had to be mindful that this engine has not run for five years and thus needed easing in gently, raising the revs by 1,000rpm per session. I came in after the first very happy though, my first actual test of the TZR and with no obvious problems. We were on!
After session two a fellow YPMer, Scott Grant, complete with broken leg from the last round, stated he had something for me: a set of Tyga Performance pipes that I should try. There has been much chat and deliberation over the exhausts I should be using; a set of F3s were in the back of my van awaiting springs and fitting them would have undoubtedly boosted my top end power. However, the way I was riding and with the weighting toward the midrange that the 300 circuit demands, Scotty’s ‘training pipes’ were just the job – stifling the top end to 11k which would protect the engine to an extent but give me the midrange boost that was missing from the road legal standard pipes currently fitted. Len was once again on hand to fit and in the afternoon session the TZR came to life. A further mod orchestrated by Gary Button, another non-riding YPMer who turns out to help people, involved dropping the clip-ons below the yoke to improve my body position – this was far more aggressive.
My wilful exuberance for this bike took over fromwhat I should have been doing – testing lines, looking for turning in points and braking markers. What I can only describe as spirited riding, knee down and tucking behind the bubble took my mind off the job in hand – which was great for a trackday, but taught me little for the racing to follow. I pulled in after a day in the sun, perfect conditions, with every faith in my TZR, the Bridgestone S20Rs I was running and optimistic that I would be at least in among the rookies the following day. With the final session done I wheeled the bike to scrutineering. All was in good shape, transponder fitted and I was race ready. Then it rained…
Waking up to drizzle on the windows had the nerves jangling once more. Yes I had wet tyres with me, but guess what? I had never ridden on wets before! I was advised to just ride as normal but you have to get over the fear and I struggled with that as we went out to qualify. As it was, the rubber was like glue, but it certainly did not feel as fast as the day before. I ended up qualifying 28th on the grid, with eight bikes behind me but a lot of blue smoke to cut through in race one.
As race one approached, the anticipation was killing me, getting reports from the race before us as to whether it was a wet or a dry race.
Paul Traylen (PT) had appeared from Jersey to give me a hand on the spanners, a great friend who made the journey across the Channel just for me. A last minute call had him on the floor changing the wheels, we were going with dry – the right call, but didn’t leave us enough time, so my grid position was forfeit and I lined up at the back. This didn’t phase me though; my race starts are suspect at best and this gave me the chance to practice. As the warm up lap proceeded I had got off the line without a problem and was happy enough, but it didn’t take long before I realised there was something very wrong.
As I made my way round the circuit the front was chattering like hell, vibrations coming up through the bars as I braked and the front felt very odd indeed. Everything was telling me to pull in to the pits, but false optimism and desperation to complete a race, and thus my project, had me lining up to start. The red lights went out, the smoke came up and we were away to the top of the Senna Straight, tentatively round Riches and as I approached the Montreal hairpin the front was just not playing ball. I took a wide line, raised my hand and nursed the TZR down to Agostini and off the circuit. Project Likely Fail had done exactly that, failed, and I only had three more attempts to succeed.
PT was at hand. I was positive that the shuddering was more than the slight movement you had in the floating discs and I was right. Grabbing a lid, Paul headed off on the TZR to give it a try, travelled 3m and said, “Yup, your front bearings are shot.” Thirty-year-old bike (remember?), ridden pretty hard all day the day before and the bearings had just collapsed. PT went a wandering as I sat with my head in my hands. Paul returned with a set of bearings that fellow competitor, Dick Barber, had given him – not sold, given! That’s the YPM spirit for you. I tried to thrust money into Dick’s hand but he was having none of it. What a guy! Paul managed to tool out the old and tool in the new, and I could have kissed him as my dry setup was ready for Race 2, but the rain came again, and wasn’t going to stop this time.
With the racing backing up the only thing hindering us was the fading light and a cut off point of 6.30pm. As it was, it became evident that we were going and that was fine by me. I had a strange optimism about this one; maybe it was the fact that the conditions were so sketchy that just finishing was tantamount to a win in my mind. The rain is a great leveller for sure and with seasoned campaigners describing the scene outside of the pit garage as nigh on biblical, well, the pressure was off. Being on the grid would bring its own kudos and there were better riders than me pulling the plug, so all I needed do was tentatively race to a finish and this would be a victory in itself.
As we headed out for the warm up lap the task truly presented itself. Smoke became spray and as the lap developed I found a rhythm that I was happy with. Much to my surprise the number of DNFs from the first race, and me not posting a full lap time, had bumped me up the grid to start on the ninth row, a place further ahead than my qualifying. Race 2 began with the creeping dark being lightened with the orange visor that I had ordered for my Bell Racestar lid the week before, which seriously brightened the gloom. I was going well, a slight touch on the red and whites gave me a true ‘moment’ but I pulled myself together. I had my target up front and was gaining but it seemed on every corner there was a reminder of the wet. Bikes sliding off the circuit, or propped up against the barriers with riders standing in the pouring rain wondering what the hell they were doing out there.
Then it happened, #160 passed me and the pilot, Danny Gough, from G-Force Motorcycles had raised the stakes. I was no longer just happy to finish – I wanted to race and get the place back, so race I did. On a number of occasions I was alongside but never quite managed to enter the corners accurately enough or drive out without the fear of sliding off. As it was, Danny and I had a good spat. He finished
0.242 of a second ahead of me as we battled out of the final corner to get on the gas toward the chequered flag. I crossed the line and Project Likely Fail... hadn’t. Nine months of my life culminated in the crossing of this line, which I did behind a thoroughly decent bloke who received a waving finger and the promise I would ’ave him tomorrow!
My fastest lap was a 2m 59s, some nine seconds slower than qualifying time but I could forget that for now, as news came in that all riders were okay and that the bikes would be out again the following day I could relax into a beer. Tomorrow was a bonus; my work here was done.
Saturday evening was an event, the end of season presentations for the YPMers hosted by Mungo, one of their, dare I say, favourite sons. I was mesmerised at how this club all comes together, detailing the highs and lows of the season and giving individual awards to riders in a vast array of categories. This is a very social bunch, all brought together from various walks of life that are driven to YPM with a love for the TZR and racing. There are those that pass through, 2017 YPM Champion Anthony Johnson for one, he is a class act winning the championship by well over 100 points and had earlier completed the four-lap wet race a full minute and a half before me. He started his championship winning ways with YPM as top Rookie in 2006, continued to step up the classes into British Superbikes until funds and an accident put him out for a year. This season followed to get him refocused and now the YPM brethren are fund raising to get him back to BSB in the litre class.
As the beers flowed and the banter continued, I made an exit, I like a beer, don’t get me wrong, but I like the racing more and wasn’t going to have the ‘one too many’ that would have ruined the following day.
No rain to wake up to, but there had been plenty through the night and the uncertainty of the right setup was back. A practice in the morning of two complete laps was well served by my wets, one gambler skidded off at Riches so knew I had made the right choice. As we waited for the programme to catch up with less laps, time was getting on and it was not something I had a lot of due to a prior commitment. I decided before race three that this would have to be the last, the difference between getting back home at 8pm or 11pm was a no brainer, though piss poor planning on my part.
We watched the times and gathered the news on how the track was, the dark clouds were above us, but no rain. The Senna Straight was dry enough, but what about the rest of the three-mile circuit? As race five went out a decision had to be made, some were on dry some were on wets, and there was the fable of the drying line. Well, my lines were all to shit to be honest so I thought my best bet was to stick with wets as even if there was a dry line, my chances of getting on it weren’t great. Wets it was… I continued to creep up the grid; the finish from the night before had promoted me to row 8, just behind bike #29 ridden by my good friend Giles Harwood who introduced me to the YPM in the first place. If I could just tuck in behind him and get a tow round the circuit all would be good, as he was on wets, too. As we lined up and went off for the warm up lap it was obvious that I had made the wrong choice: it was dry all the way round!
I was determined to make a good go at this though. We lined up and though my race starts are much improved Giles was gone, and so had Danny who had made the previous night’s race even more of an event. As I peeled into the hairpin at Montreal the race order was establishing itself. I was suitably dispatched by #56 Philip Stourbridge on an Aprilia who had suffered a bad start, but then a group of four emerged jostling for position including Ian Read on a Suzuki, Konrad Breese on a TZ125 and much to my surprise, Liam Burscough, a fellow YPM man who I would normally expect to see up front.
As it turned out Liam had bike issues, which made sense and as the power on the straights was letting him down, this left me jostling for position with Konrad on the 125. Another battle and one I was determined to win; so much so that my race-craft took another giant step away from being proficient as I overran on Agostini’s, scraping Scott’s pipes, to make the turn. I continued to go too hot into most corners, especially Murray’s at the bottom of the Senna Straight where I was amazed I managed to brake in time. All in
all it was not pretty. Konrad may well have backed off as I could chew him up on the straights but my cornering was difficult to read, hell, even I didn’t know where I was going!
I brought her home and completed race three. It wasn’t ideal and the orange bib may only be six more signatures away from being discarded, but is for the moment a necessary garment in my own honest and personal opinion. As I collected my timing sheet I saw a massive improvement of time on a dry track with wet tyres, I had put in a 2m 33s lap, 26 seconds better than my best wet lap the race before, and 17 seconds better than qualifying. Add a bit of race-craft, heightened track knowledge and experience and I know I can improve. It’s so very, very tempting. But that concludes my main project for 2017; it has been such an interesting experience. Highs and lows for sure but actually completing what I started is such an enormous rush, outweighed only by the time I have spent with so many brilliant people, who gave me their time and expertise along the way. To them I offer my thanks and gratitude and to you, well, there is a great opportunity waiting for you with the YPMs just over this page. Whether you have raced and want back in or just want to give it a try believe me, you won’t find nicer people to share a track with. The way I am feeling at present you never know, but I might just be one of them…