Go! Go! Go!
The dreaming, planning and preparation has led to this, as Peter Boast’s protégé, 16 year-old Franco Bourne, gets to the Junior Superstock startline
It’s time for the moment of truth. After what seems like ages building up the bike and doing a bit of testing, and fiddling about with the bike some more, and doing a bit more testing and wearing out tyres the season finally kicked off at Oulton Park, 26-27 June.
The British Superbike paddock feels like glamour, but we’re in the Junior Superstock support class and we know our place – they’ve allocated us a spot well out of the way, near a tree next to some of the sidecar lads who are usually down to earth folk like us. Practice starts on the Friday, but you’ve got to be there early. Crew chief Ryan was in the queue to get in on Wednesday evening and I took the van up on Thursday, so it’s a four-day weekend.
There hadn’t been much to do to the Kawasaki ZX-6R since the last test. The painted up bodywork and tank were fitted so the bike looked really good, and we’d changed the gearing based on what we’d learned at the test day at Oulton a few weeks ago. We finally got the quickshifter fitted too, and there are quite a few variables with that so there was some learning to do. You can adjust the sensitivity of the lever, and the amount of time that it kills the ignition for. It was all new to Ryan and me, but fortunately Dan Mckie who works for Chris Walker came and helped, and he’d got experience with them.
Friday’s free practice sessions were a bit touch and go with the weather. There were damp patches so we had Franco out on wets. He did 12 laps and was about 10th fastest, but it dried out at the end of the session and some of the lads went out on dry tyres so he was bumped down to 20th or something. It doesn’t matter, its only free practice.
Next session we screwed up and he only got about three laps, but at least it was dry. We’d not understood the rules about the tyres properly, so our tyres didn’t have the right stickers on them and we weren’t allowed out until we had the stickers, which they check as you go onto the track. I’m saying nothing more. Qualifying went well, I think he was 17th, which was fair enough, he was in the ballpark. So, Saturday dawns and it’s the day of his first ever 600 race, and your first race in a new class is always exciting. There’s some right headbangers in Junior Superstock, but Franco was being pretty sensible. ‘I’m taking it easy at the start and staying out of trouble,’ he says. Good call, because the first lap was crazy with a couple of lads torpedoing each other at Cascades and at the end of the lap Franco’s up to 14th.
At one point he’d climbed to 11th, but then he screwed up the chicane a couple of times, once to go across the grass, and dropped back to 18th, but at the finish he was back at 14th and in the points. We’re all dead chuffed with that, though Franco wasn’t very happy about the quickshifter set-up.
Saturday night we had a barbecue in the paddock did some fiddling with the bike, including the quickshifter, then had a game of football with the sidecar lads pitched next to us. I’ve not done that in the paddock for a while, it was good fun. Sunday dawns, we were out in the first race at about midday with new tyres (again) and, based on his times in the first race he’s 11th on the grid. After the warm-up there’s a last minute panic. Franco thinks the back wheel’s loose, which is a worry because I put it in there, but it feels OK. ‘If it doesn’t feel right come in after the first lap,’ I shout at him as they are clearing the grid.
There’s no first lap carnage this time and Franco comes flying past the pits so he must be happy with the problem whatever it was, and he’s lapping in the 1m 42s from the start, and staying with the first group of riders who have been going a bit quicker. But then he made a mistake at Lodge and ran wide, and got swallowed up by the second group and ends up in 16th place and just out of the points. After the race we tried to have a debrief, mainly to understand what the warm up problem was. ‘It felt like something pushing me from the back,’
says Franco, ‘but it was only happening in left-handers.’ It was Chris Walker that put us straight; we’d got the quickshifter set-up too sensitive, so that when Franco’s foot touched the lever, like it would when cranked over for a lefthander, it was intermittently cutting the engine. What’s the saying? ‘Every day is a school day.’
Anyway, we came away happy. The goal was a top 15 and we achieved that in the first race. The next target is a top ten, so we’ll keep plugging away. To be honest there are only fractions of a second in it and riders who are 15th one week can be 7th the next. It all depends on the day. The season took ages to start but from now on it’s really busy so try and get along to one of the rounds if you can. And obviously we’d love for you to help us out with the cost of tyres. Go to uk.gofundme.com and search for Franco Bourne. It all helps. The next thing for me is racing my 1979 Aspes 125 scrambler at The King of the Castle Motocross at Farleigh Castle. I’m going back there in September to race at the Vets des Nations, so this is a chance to learn the track, then I’ve got a couple of other motocross meetings, Donington CRMC (31 July-1 August) classic race of the year with the KTM supermono and then Aberdare Park road races the week after Donington. The summer just got busy. » If you fancy funding Franco go to uk.gofundme. com. Let’s support him, all the way…
‘There’s some right headbangers in Junior Superstock’