The week previous to the fourth round of the Hottrax Endurance Championship at Angelsey, the barren island in North wales, Loz, Andy, Lewis and the good doctor Tony had taken to the same Coastal circuit for the Plop Enduro; a fun, if not very fast, endurance race. 66 mental teams racing Honda C90s around the 1.55 mile track. Fortunately for us, but unfortunately for the rest of Team Army the nice weather was all used up for the year!
We needed good results as the format of the series for 2014 has two optional rounds. There are 9 races but only 8 count. Points can be awarded for either round 3 at Pembrey or round 7 at Knockhill. Although you’re permitted to compete at them all, Team Army had taken the option to forego round 3 (Pembrey) as our missed round. We will be making up for it at Knockhill in August. So going into round 4 we were one down on a lot of our rivals.
Friday practice for this round was a wash out for Deano as he opted to keep his leathers dry. Pep ventured out into the biblical-like conditions, as did his brother Skinny for the newly incarnated sibling-civvy racing team Cannon Fodder. Skinny is partnering the aforementioned Doctor Tony, but even his healing hands couldn’t prevent the necessity of a trip to A&E for Skinny. A high-side at the Banking threw him from his machine. He came down hard on his left arm, breaking his wrist and forcing his elbow up into his ribcage, cracking two of them in the process. Despite lots of abuse and cries to man the f##k up Skinny finally relented and after his A & E visit and a loose cast applied realised the race weekend was over. So with no available substitutes, Cannon Fodder’s debut didn’t make it to race day and Dr Tony left early.
Despite the woeful conditions there were no dramas for any of Team 2 or 3, all of whom got in some practice and set up their bikes for the forecasted heavy showers on Saturdays race day.
It was just as well that Team Army were able to make camp next to the allocated pit garages too as erecting a FOB would not have been much fun in the wind and rain on the Welsh isle.
Friday evening turned out to be not much fun for the members of the teams and pit crews who were travelling up a day later on the Friday. Jon had set off at 16:15. Lewis and Jo around 3 hours later. Kerry similar. As 23:30 came around the latter made it to the track with no sign of Jon. It would not be ’til morning when the rain had finally stopped that he would materialise from a night in the back of his van. The torrential rain had flooded the tunnels on the A55, the main artery feeding Anglesey and North Wales. Closures and diversions meant the traffic was appalling and most journeys had more than doubled. Cpl Wil Collins had the record journey, lasting around 11 hours as he made his way north-west from Cambridge. Still, the point of the weekend was to race and when Andy Dark turned up on Saturday morning Team Army were ready to do just that.
Race day. Tyre choice was the most important decision for the 8 riders of the three teams. Some calls were good some not so! As qualifying loomed it made sense to shoe the bikes and cover the different possibilities that may arise in the 30 minute session. Team 1 and 3 got it right. Team 1 were the top Clubman and Rookies qualifying 7th with only National riders ahead and around them. And Team 3 had probably their best starting position of 2014 in P15. Team 2 struggled with tyre choice, bike set up and were further down the order than usual – 27th out of the 29 teams who’d line up when the race started around 1400 hrs.
It was constant weather watch right up to the last safe moment before grid formation. The combination of sun, rain and wind meant the track would soak then dry again all within a
15/20 minute cycle. Had we made the right choices??? Oh yeah! Well two thirds of us had. Pep lead Team 1 out as he had set the qualy time and had an inter rear and wet front. There was a complete mix of tyre choices on the form up and everyone in front of Team 1 were on wets. Team 3 wets and Team 2 same choice as Team 1.
It had rained hard up to the start but as it takes 10 mins forming up and getting the Le Mans start organised the track was drying rapidly. Pep got his usual flying start running 3rd into the first corner, but Moggy for Team 2 went even better, leaping about 10 places off the start!
Moggy mixing it after his monstrous start – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
Initially the teams on inter’s or slicks were being gobbled up (Team 1 and Team 2) but after around 5 or 6 laps it started to come back and both began climbing the ranks. Pep was actually 4th overall in the whole race at about lap 15 and Team 2 had gone from second to last to 18th, 9 places up!
Rocket Pep – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
All the teams on Wets began pitting around lap 15 as their tyres began to shred on the drying surface. Team 3 had made that bad call and Iain destroyed a brand new set of wets in the 20 minutes his ZX10R was allowed to chew at them. They were now down
around Team 2’s starting position of 27.
Iain shredding those wets – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
It was looking so rosy at the front for Team 1 then disaster struck. Pep had a bit of a spin up/high-side/tuck as they say when you have no idea what’s happened. He was quickly back on the bike and completed his next few laps and before coming in.
The second sessions were dry to begin with but then it started to rain again and everyone had problems. These ranged from rock hard suspension and grip issues, steaming up visors, wrong tyre choices, losing go pros, near high-sides and crumpled wedding vegetables! Oh and a couple more offs….
Lee went off at the banked hairpin and in his haste to get back on track did a full doughnut on the wet grass before tip-toeing back to the tarmac.
Lee ‘Krispy Kreme’ Parker – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
Deano had a spill too. This later morphed into the infamous Kaiser Söze rider, thanks to Motors TV, he waltzes around the track and crashes but nobody really knows who he is??? Except maybe Deano who flips some folding his way now and again so he will take the heat. For those who missed it, Loz was mistaken for Deano on national television and outed as he embarrassingly picked his crashed bike up, even removing his gloves for effect and time-wasting tactics.
Loz getting low…or is that Deano?? – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
For Team 1 Deano had made a bit of a mess of his bike so his second outing he borrowed Pep’s and smashed that up too! It was technically not a crash but attempting to pick up hitchhikers who rip your transponder off and stick their right arm down between the swing-arm and exhaust is not professional racing.
Deano deciding where to crash Pep’s bike – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
Team 3 recovered well and finished a respectable 22nd. Good solid sessions from them all in the second half of the race.
Darryl opening the KTM’s belly – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
Team 1 finished just one place ahead of Team 2 in 9th and 10th respectively. Team 2 could have been the highest placed Army team finishers but for a 60 second penalty that Spence got for cheating…he mumbled about some yellow flag/safety car/pit entry but basically he cheated and was caught red-handed!
However Team 2 had their best race of the season by a long way – they were Top Rookies 600s, Top Clubman 600s and finished 3rd over all the 600 classes with only two National teams ahead of them and 3 behind. Just to rub it in they also bagged the fastest Clubman 600 lap at 1:15.86. From a start of 27th on the grid that is a major achievement.
Team 2; media darlings – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
Team 1 picked up top Rookies, 3rd in Clubman and very satisfyingly for Pep, the fastest Clubman 1000 lap of the day a 1:14.04.
Finally, from Loz’s point of view all he would have liked was a proper planned slick change over, just once. His first one after Deanos ZX10R crash was a rather flustered unexpected affair. His second was after a wrong call at the last hour point and Deano went out on inter’s only to come in after 3 laps as it trounced it down and Loz was still in his slippers. The third one invovlved the hitchhiker incident, so again, an unexpected Deano arrived in the pits on Pep’s bike and as Patch went to grab the transponder the whole bracket was missing. Deano unzipped his leathers and it tumbled out onto the floor. To top it all off, that change over was under a safety car as they recovered the one-armed hitchhiker and the pit exit was closed. This all meant Loz had to sit waiting for 5 minutes in the pouring rain until the marshals let him rejoin the race.
The Anglesey trophy haul – photo courtesy of Wil Collins
All in all it was another tremendous event for Team Army Endurance Racing. Lots of incidents with four seasons of weather in 3 hours of racing and we still came away with stacks of trophies and stories to embellish for the Grandkids. A marvellous achievement from the pit crews and supporters too. They kept the fleet running and did more tyre and wheel changes than the drops of rain that fell that day…..a bloody lot!
We now have lots of bike fettling and repairs to do in preparation for the double-header 6 hour event at Donnington. Ride on!
Army Endurance Motorcycle Race Team 