It’s oil over for another year
A delighted Team Lincolnshire hit the front in Spa and pull a 20 second lead. But then…
THE ENDURANCE RACE AT THE BIKER’S Classic at Spa is our favourite event of the year. There’s a fantastic atmosphere, proper history and the track is mega. This year we planned to run two bikes. The Katana was a nightmare to prepare after it’d been crashed at the previous round, but the GSX-R750 that I was down to ride with Guy Martin was pretty easy, though we’d never run it with lights before, so they had to be fitted. We even got to test it at the Classic Suzuki trackday at Cadwell Park the weekend before Spa. Because Guy’s so busy we thought we’d best think about another rider for Spa too. I know Danny Webb, who’s a former 125 GP rider and currently rides a GSX-R 1000 in the World Endurance Championship, through racing flat-track. He was at the Cadwell Suzuki day to ride an RG500 that he was also going to ride in a parade at Spa (and for Danny ‘parade’ doesn’t mean that you hang about), so we asked him to have a go on the 750 too. So he did. And he liked it. Which was just as well because on the Tuesday Guy told us he couldn’t make it, so we called Danny. It was almost like we had an actual plan.
We got down to Spa on Wednesday evening and then there was an open track day on the Thursday, so I did a session before Danny turned up for qualifying on Friday. The bike was running perfect, but it’s short of horsepower. Which we knew. Then we have the issue of there being lots of fast bikes in that Evo class, and I’m not sure they’re all 750s.
Danny was a great team mate. He’s laid back and prepared to compromise, which you’ve got to be in endurance racing when there’s two riders. Set-up has to be a balance that works for both riders; you can’t get it perfect for one if it doesn’t work for the other guy. It was dry for qualifying – Danny was 9th fastest and I was 18th in my group, so overall we were 12th on the grid. We were happy with that and thought we might be able to get a top ten finish.
Because Danny was fastest he did the start but the bike, after running flawlessly in every practice session, sprang an oil leak during warm-up. The guys got to work while the bike was on the grid and then it started to drizzle on the sighting lap. When you’re down on power you start to think a damp track isn’t such a bad
thing because it takes away everyone else’s advantage. But, what happened next was still a bit of a shock…
Danny gets a great start and he’s seventh into the first corner. When he comes round again he’s second. And next lap he’s in the lead. We was gobsmacked. I know how slow that bike is, so he was making it all up on the brakes and on corner speed. And he just started pulling out a bigger lead, every lap. After a while the rain started to let up, but by then he had a 20 second lead and I started to worry about having to maintain it when it was my session. Too good to be true? Of course it was. After 40 minutes, and with that big lead, Danny disappears from the timing screen. That’s always bad. Everyone’s worrying that he might of crashed, but not saying that. And we are watching the race slip away. We spent three to four laps trying to find him and then he rides the bike into the back of the garage having cut through the infield from the back of the circuit. The oil leak’s back.
The guys set to work, decided that it could have been a problem with the coupling, fitted new bits and we cleaned the bike. Then I went out. Riding a bike that might be leaking oil is really stressful. You don’t want to be going into Eau Rouge at full-pelt with oil slathered over the back tyre. I did four laps, constantly looking down, checking my boots (it’s why I wear white boots) for oil before I decided that it wasn’t leaking and I could get my head down. Then, about lap seven I suddenly could smell oil burning on the exhaust so I pulled over at the long left hander at the top of the course. The back of the bike was covered in oil.
I had to go back to the pits through the infield, so of course I got lost, and by the time I got back there we’d dropped so much time and were so far behind we decided to retire it. The whole garage was a bit despondent, but we got the beers out and watched the rest of the race. It was a real shame, but seeing Danny lead the race was one of the best moments of the year. So far.
We’ve got a team meeting in a few days to decide what to do next. Maybe Misano in October, or the Bol d’or in September. Or maybe we’ll decide that we’re all skint.
‘I know how slow that bike is, so he was making it all up on the brakes and on corner speed’