A slightly depleted Team Army was attending this event. Team 3 were complete in all their glorious splendour, Darryl, Lee and Iain. Moggy was unable to make it so Team 2, who are already Champions in the Clubman 600 and 600 Rookie class, abstained. Team 1 had Deano missing, sold his bike and busy getting married. Pep however was made it – he had just got back from 8 weeks on Mil manoeuvres. Having landed Thursday from Canada, he travelled up Friday and raced Saturday. Spence, present in a solo capacity had decided to do some sprint races in the Michelin Power. He had also had a busy time since the last race – not only had he broken (scrapped) and sold most of Peps GSXR1000 that died at Knockhill, he had also arranged a donor bike for Pep to use at this event: collecting it; race preparing it; transporting it, scrutineering it; and numbering it up. The only thing left to do was choose tyres and top it up with fuel (later!!!) – easy peasy right???
Friday before the race day was an ACU test and preparation day. None of the riders had ever been to Croft before so it was for learning the circuit and setting up the bikes. The circuit learning was useful but setting the bikes up was not really relevant as the weatherman had predicted biblical, monsoon like conditions for the Saturday race day. Most had some issues but Loz had much more than his fair share. Loads of little niggles appeared from the off he had at Oulton. 1) Exhaust fell off 2) Quick-shifter still not working, 3) Brakes not working (bled loads of times and finally found out the reservoir feed was blocked!). Last race of the season and still working on bikes! It just brought home how much preparation and constant vigilance is required to keep these bikes up to race standard. Luckily we had Professor Anthony Thornton, PHD, Doctorate of fixing things sharing our pit.
So Race morning arrived and the weathermen were 50% correct it was wet but not the dramatic monsoon predicted. Pep arrived and just had chance to sign on, find his bike and get out on his qualifying laps. First ever ride of Spence’s Dad’s Triumph 675. First ever laps of a wet Croft circuit…get in!!! Team 3 were looking good. Darryl was also doing (ahem) light weight sprint racing on his SV650 so had two lots of qualifying to do which worked well, the extra laps paying dividends as they out qualified Team 1 for the first time this year! In fact it was probably their best position of the season in P11. Spence and Darryl both had racing on the Sat morning, the Endurance race being in the afternoon. Good to see one of our Major Sponsors turn up too – Donna from Bike Tyres Leeds, who have given us tremendous support in discounted Michelin tyres all season.
Darryl won both his Light weight races and finished as the 2014 Hottrax Light weight Champion, well done Skippy! Hopper!
Darryl “Lightweight Champion” Hodder
Spence struggled in Race 1 – the premise to this is listen to the tannoy. The organisers anticipating the bad weaner and likely offs had brought things forward. Thus, Spence did not get out to qualify and missed out on vital setup time. He started second to last, managing to get up as high as fourth at the start. He eventually finished sixth but given his recent form he was not happy. Changes made he was feeling a lot more confident going into Race 2. And with good reason as he quickly made his way up to second. Chasing down the leader his flawless season came, literally, crashing to a halt. But…if you are going to have your first one at the last event you may as well make it a biggie! Spectacular, ambulances, barrels rolls, red flags, total destruction, annihilation of race leathers, 3 figure speed (130mph-ish)! But most importantly walk away with a grazed (friction burned to the bone) elbow and all your teeth!
Back on time (thanks to Spence) it was Race time.
The weather improved steadily and tyre choice to start the race was a last minute crucial call. Both Teams got it right for a change. The lights went out and Loz began for Team 1, Darryl for Team 3. The first carnage happened to the race Leaders and our good friend Silicone engineering’s Russ Mountford. He crashed out while leading the entire race on lap 4. The first change overs occurred around Lap 19/20, Team 1 had a spanking first session and had climbed from P15 in qualifying to P7. Team 3 had just about held their position only dropping a place or two.
Pep’s first outing at race pace was next for Team 1 and he quickly settled. His times cascading lap after lap. It all looked rosy and a good finish was on the cards…IF they kept it up…BUT this is endurance racing and things go wrong. Only 20 or so minutes into his 30 min session Pep came screaming past the pit wall gesticulating like a gibbon on crack, so Loz hurriedly got ready to go early. Remember, the only thing he had to do was top the fuel up as Spence had pretty much done everything else. Let’s put it down to jet lag and checking up on Spence after his big off! So, on fumes Pep came in early with an almost empty bike and this unscheduled stop would produce another high drama event at the end of the race. Team 3 sent Lee out next who had a very consistent session and hasprobably seen the biggest improvement in his lap times and pace of anyone this season.
Lee “Ahhhhh” Parker
But Team 3’s dramas were about to start.
An Hour into the race and Team 1 were P11 and 5th in Clubman class with a lot to do to get a good result. Team 3 were P14 and directly behind Team 1 at 6th in the Clubman standings. Iain was their 3rd rider out and whether he was duped or it was genuine concern from other racers we will never know. He was waved at and pointed at by anyone around him so he came into the pits to check and found his belly pan was full of water. This was boiling off his exhaust and looked like a major problem but was just a load of steam! So out he went again but that stop cost a lap! The other concern was just simply the state of his poor old ZX10. It looks like it has been in a shed with a couple of frag grenades, just about every bit of alloy on the bike is pitted. Too many visits to Auntie Grass and Uncle Gravel’s house.
The race settled down but a few more big offs brought out the safety car and getting rather bored after about 6 laps, Loz decided to make a few hand gestures at another rider friend who had gone skirmishing in the woods earlier. This provoked a summons from race control and Pep’s diplomacy saved us a penalty. The UN will be calling for his services in the Middle East after that. Darryl had a schoolboy error stint, he forgot his arm band and was flagged into the pits to put it on, another lap lost!
The high drama for Team 1 came at the end of the race. Pep had well and truly got up to speed, one of our main rivals had crashed and we were hovering between 2nd and 4th in class. Knowing we had to make an unscheduled stop both he and Loz had really got their heads down on their 3rd sessions to build enough of a margin to fit the loss of a minute+ in the pits and still finish in 2nd. Pep came in with 4/5 laps to go and Loz set off like a whippet. It was nail biting stuff as for the pits and riders as we didn’t really know where we were until the next lap and transponder readings were flagged up on screen. But yes we had pulled it off and a P7 finish in the race and 2nd in Clubman 1000 behind Team Big Lads. Team 3 finished a very respectful P16 and 8th in class. Lee was still bitterly disappointed as Darryl nipped his fastest Team lap away from him in the dying minutes of the race!
Congratulations to Team Big lads for winning the Clubman 1000 race and for entertaining everyone with their formation riding and spectacular crashes, about 27 in total!!!! The aftermath sometimes gruesome but they always have a smile.
SO…congratulations to all at Team Army and our success this year.
The biggest goes to:
Team 2 Spence (Triumph675) and Moggy (Yamaha R6) 600cc Clubman and Rookie Champions 2014
Team 1 Pep (GSXR1000K4) Loz (GSXR1000K7) and Deano (ZX10R) 4th in the Clubman 1000cc and second Rookies
Team 3 Darryl (KTM, GSXR1000K5) Lee (GSXR750 K7) and Iain (ZX10R) 8th in the Clubman 1000cc championship. It was Lee and Iain’s first year racing but as Darryl was not a rookie they could not enter the rookie championship. So extra well done to those 2.
Individual awards were:
Light weight 2014 Champion Darryl Hodder (SV650)
Finally thanks to everyone who came to support us throughout the year.
The WAGS: Robyn; Dawn; Rachel; Kelly; Stacey; Tania; and Cath.
Guest Riders: Andrew Day (who also helped pit); Paul Whyatt
The Pit Crews: Patrick Williams; Jon Capstick; Roy Spencer-Fleet; Charlie Hodder; Kerry Murphy; and Julie Simpson.
Big thanks to the amazing general support of the amazing Rowett family and their bottomless bag of food – how do you transport it all to the circuit?
A massive thanks to Lewis Williams – an ever present in the pits this season he also puts together the blog you’re reading (except for Donnington, which you’re just going to have to take his word that it was eventful…sorry!)
Apologies to anyone we’ve left out but we really appreciated your effort and support over the season.
Check back with us soon as we’ll bring you the Team Army 2014 awards to pass the time in the off season.
Finally…thank you, thank you, thank you to our sponsors – we literally couldn’t race without the help you’ve given us this season and hope you can help Team Army achieve its goals next season!
Army Endurance Motorcycle Race Team 