Round 4 took the Team to the much loved picturesque ‘Track Mon’ circuit in Anglesey, North Wales for what will be a 500km race. There was a few changes to the teams with the teams make up being:
T1 – Made up of the ever consistent WO2 ‘Moggy’ Morgan and super-fast Veteran Loz Williams.
T2 – With veteran Tobias George choosing to miss a round, this gave LCpl ‘Danny’ Richardson who recently returned from the Falklands to ride with Sgt ‘Leon’ Wilton.
T3 – Veterans Darryl hodder and Lee Parker.
T4 – WO2 ‘Andy’ Day and Cpl ‘Jase’ Cooper.
T5 – WO2 ‘Carl’ Goodchild and Sgt ‘Soph’ Ellis.
Test Day
T4’s Andy turned up with his bike looking a little worse for wear after his excursion at the wet wet wet Donington. The remaining required spares arrived at track and the bike was in full working order for the first session but with his slightly ropey looking spare fairings fitted. With T5’s riders never having visited the circuit before the test day was all about set up and learning the limits of the circuit with the help of T1’s Moggy who is a certified race coach. Craig was just about to head out on the second practice session and luckily Pit crew member Marty noticed an oil leak coming from the forks, this had to be fixed by stripping the forks down and fitting new seals.
T1’s other rider Loz had some testing to do on his rebuilt bike after his electrical fire at Donington. Leon’s T2 made some major suspension changes that helped him improve his lap times and finished the day very happy and got some cracking photos courtesy of the team photographer cami-pix.
On a beautiful sunny day at Anglesey the team did what it needed…lots of testing and dry set up ready for a dry race.
Race Day
After the glorious sunshine of the Friday test day many team members were woken to their caravans rocking in the intense wind and the loud sound of heavy rain bouncing off the roof. The weather was that bad that qualifying for all classes was cancelled until after 1000 hrs when only a ‘wet free practice’ was allowed in order to ascertain the grip levels. From the Army teams only T5’s Soph took up this offer as he needed to ensure his leaking fork seal was fully rectified. The forks defiantly worked well as the rookie rider put his bike in 3rd overall! Less than a second off last seasons championship leaders time!
As there was no qualifying the start order was drawn from a hat and bore no resemblance to the lap times of the riders. Although this made for an interesting start there were no issues relating to the varying speeds of the riders in a wet sprint across the track and start.
Team 5: Starting in 19th, Carl set off with full wets on and made it to 4th place on the first lap holding a good position. With the track drying out he needed to change riders before the dying track totally destroyed his tyres. Soph had a dry front tyre and a slick rear which by this time was the best choice in the mixed conditions of a drying track. He took it easy at first and slowly built to a good pace. Coming towards the end of his first 30 min stint; he had a wobble which turned into a big tank slapper – leading Soph running off the track and finding the sodden wet grass. With the rider being fine but the bike being a bit of a mess and in a difficult position to be recovered at the end of the fastest point on track; the safety car was deployed. With transponder in hand Soph had to run some distance back to the pits but luckily he’s a fit PTI. Carl set off for a full 40 minute session and only returned for fuel, at this time he was informed that Soph and his bike were unable to continue. In true endurance mentality Carl took this as a challenge to finish the remainder of the 500 Km race himself!
Team 4: Starting in a lowly 32nd position at the tail end of the track gave Coops the determination to get a great start. The choice of a wet front and dry rear tyre was possibly a little ambitious for the first 10 minutes of the race and he struggled but stayed out. As the track dried the tyre choice came good and Coops slowly moved up through the field but the tyre choice really came good at around the 15-20 minute mark and the majority of teams came in for pit-stops to change wets for dry tyres. This meant T4 leaped most of the field. With quick and slick pit-stops throughout the race from pit-crew Dean and Sweeny (and his better half Zoe), T4 consistently competed for a top 10 position overall and held 3rd place in the Clubman 600 class for long periods of the race. A solid, consistent pace from both riders combined with great work and planning from the pit-crew brought Team 4 home in 13th overall and 4th in class. The podium will come this year!
Team 3: Cath picked the grid position for T3 which gave a strong 7th on the grid. Following T4’s lead; Darryl started on a wet front and slick rear. He had a bad start as the ignition was turned off so he lost about 10 places. The very slippery track at the start caused some issues but as it started to dry the places were pulled back. T1’s Loz went past on full dry tyres as the track came good and Darryl gave chase staying within view until about 30 min into the race. Unfortunately Darryl’s tyres were starting to go off, and into the corkscrew he tipped right the front gave way and down he went into the tyre wall. Lucky it was right beside the pit entrance so it wasn’t far to get back and change over with Lee without losing too much time. T3 seemed to be battling on track with all the other Army teams; T4’s Andy battled with Lee for most of a 30 in session and both had a great laugh stuffing it up the inside of each other before Lee then battled with T4’s Coops for another session. Meanwhile in his sessions Darryl battled with Moggy, Loz or Carl. Unfortunatly Lee had a mechanical failure in the last 4 laps so got a DNF as there was no T3 bike on track.
Team 2: Danny started as Leons bike sometimes struggles to fire up on first push of the button. Danny started on full wets and as the track dried he came in earlier in the session than anticipated which resulted in a very slow bike change. Leon went out on dry tyres and limped round for the first few laps getting used to the wet patches, but it was defiantly the better choice of tyre and managed a 45 min stint before coming in knackered. Far the next change Danny only managed a 10 minute session as he was having brake issues, so another slow pit-stop and another 45 min stint for Leon. T2 finished 17th overall and 5th in class after a challenging round.
Team 1: Picked 30th of 37 teams for grid position just one up from T4. T1 used their heads and planned ahead. With one bike on wets and one set on drys, the decision was made to start the race on drys…..the track was drying.. so Loz was told to not push at start of race as the tyres will come to him. Loz started and first few laps were hairy still a lot of water and floods across track and he had some big slides. Loz managed 45 mins on track and took the team from 30th to 4th!. Moggy then went out after a swift pit change by Cpl ‘biz’ Bizeray. The pit stops were faultless all weekend! Moggy finished his session and the team had now made it into a podium position!. With another change loz went out again, but unfortunately had to signal to come in… his visor had steamed up he was unable to see properly. So with just a 20 min break Moggy was back out again for 45 mins. By this point the team were fighting for 2nd in the race and 2nd national team! Pit stop again and loz was out and out to keep this position.Then his bike thought otherwise… could see on the fastest part of circuit it was limping. Moggy was shouted upon to get ready for a change and on that lap, loz was back in!..Even with this the change was swift!. Loz’s was quickly into the garage and found the regulator rectifier had burnt itself out. Quick walk up and down pits, someone lent him one and we were back in action! With just over an hour to go, Moggy that had done most of the race, we could tell he was getting tired. So loz was back out for the last session and thankfully brought it home! 3rd overall in the race and 3rd in national! Tremendous result!
The race for all the teams was challenging, exciting, exhilarating but also exhausting for some riders. The team now have 5 weeks rest. Where they can prepare thier bikes for what will be the most challenging race of the year. 29th of July will see the teams take part in a 1000km race around Donington Park circuit. This will be a huge team effort!
As always we have to thank the support crew, family and friends who come to support, feed and care for the riders. We couldn’t do it without you. Cath the Queen of the pit-wall, Cami (cami-Pix) for all the amazing photos, Lorraine & Marina for feeding us, Dean, Greeny, Sweeney, Zoe, Biz, Paul, Martin, Rick, T, Tracey and all the rest that justy wouldn’t be able to carry out our passion without you all.
Keep your eyes peeled for our video coming up soon on our YouTube channel.
Photo credits go to the amazing Camilla at https://www.facebook.com/CamipixPhotography
Army Endurance Motorcycle Race Team 