Monthly review - April

 

Intro

A month further into 2023 and not only is the weather a bit warmer, the racing has certainly heated up. We have the first round from the RAF classic racing team in the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club (CRMC) where we have some added thoughts and photographs from one of our new riders Benjamin ‘Murf’ Murfin who got to experience getting stuck in at his first club level racing event. We also have round two for the No Limits Racing (NLR) club along with their interservices championship and a host of other club racing meetings to round out a busy April.

This month we have 12 of the RAFMSA MCRR’s riders in 3 events over March so let’s get into what they have been doing.

CRMC

The first round of the CRMC was held at Darley Moor this year. Darley remains a Marmite track for the team, being much loved by “King of Darley” David Williams and loathed by pretty much everyone else. Williams was joined by RAF classic racing team mates Gavin Heggs and Symon Woodward with support from John Walton and, as mentioned in the intro, Murfin who was getting a taste for club racing by helping on the tools and manning the kettle. Also riding under the RAFMSA was Mike Burke who was racing with Luigi Moto on a rather nice Ducati TT2. Finally, two other familiar faces are now associate members of the RAFMSA in the form of Joe Woodward and Živilė ‘Ziv’ Žukauskaitė. 

Williams  - PJM Photography

Promised good weather was on show for Saturday morning with bright sunshine with temperatures gradually climbing through the day. Out first were the superbikes and superstock 750’s where the team had Williams, Heggs and Joe all out on Honda VFR750 RC24’s. As per usual, Joe set off like he was on a mission, Williams, still seriously quick had no chance of staying with the 20 year old and Heggs would only really get a good look at Joe whilst being lapped. Out on the same grid was Mike Burke in the superbike class. Unfortunately his Ducati TT2 was suffering with clutch slip issues so struggled to make mid pack with a 4th in class for both races on Saturday. Unable to resolve the issue, he decided to knock it on the head as memories of a destroyed engine casing the last time he had clutch issues told him not to push his luck. Joe comfortably won both Saturday races with Willams just missing the podium with a pair of 4th places and Heggs making gradual progress from 13th to 12th.  

Burke  - PJM Photography

Heggs  - PJM Photography

86 Burk in the thick of it  - PJM Photography

Sy Woodward and Heggs were both out on their Yamaha RD250’s next with Woodward looking forward to another challenging season against rival Jerry Longland and Heggs just hoping his bike wouldn’t explode this time. Heggs had put quite a lot of work into his RD over the winter but was still not completely confident after 2 seized engines in the last 2 races entered. A small mishap during practice where the left carb stuck wide open and the bike generally running cold were rectified with a swap to a hotter spark plug and screwing the carb top on properly. Otherwise Heggs, much like his VFR efforts, enjoyed some slow progress for a pair of 4th places thankfully lacking in exploding engines. Meanwhile Symon was finding himself a little disappointed to find the front of the grid also a bit uneventful. Two easy wins were gifted to him as Longland was apparently a bit off pace.

Woodward  - PJM Photography

Heggs  - PJM Photography

Williams was back with his Yamaha FZ600 in the junior production class which shared the grid  with the superstock 400’s where Joe Woodward and Ziv were out on their Kawasaki ZXR400 and Honda VFR400 respectively. 

A familiar pattern formed with Joe tearing off for a couple of class wins with Williams a second or so off his lap pace finding a 4th and a 5th in his own hotly contested race. A little further back, Ziv was having her own battles seeing out the last day as a novice racer with a pair of 9th place.

Williams  - PJM Photography

33 Ziv leads the way - PJM Photography

    Sunday started with a bit of mist in the air. A little caution during the first couple of laps helped keep bikes upright whilst the more eager found themselves in a spot of bother navigating the grass or worse. The pattern was the same as on Saturday only with longer races as there was no practice. Great news for more laps for your entry fee, bad news if you are trying to avoid being lapped by everybody.

Two more wins and a class lap record came to Joe in the superstock 750 class with only Joe Barton in front of him racing in the superbike class. Williams again put in good consistent laps for two more 4th place finishes. Heggs started to loosen up a bit into Sunday, finding some brake lever adjustments to push his braking later and some friendly advice from team mates knocked a couple of seconds off of his lap times so progress was certainly made.

Williams  - PJM Photography

Without much of a race to do, Symon had to make his own fun so set the target of lapping a slow Heggs for the weekend. He might have failed on Saturday but the extra laps on Sunday made this game a fair bit easier. This he succeeded on the last lap of the first race of Saturday whilst sailing round for another win whilst Heggs managed a 3rd thanks to the unfortunate retirement of Graham Acott. Gloating was short lived however as a poor Start from Woodward on the final race and a good one for pretty much everyone else saw Heggs somehow in 2nd place chasing a slightly more lively looking Longland. First of all the commentators were very confused as to what was happening, a feeling shared by Heggs and Woodward had some work to do. Woodward made short work of getting back onto the tail of Longland getting back in front within a couple of laps leaving Longland no real hope of getting back in front. Another win for Symon Woodward and claiming the 250 air cooled lap record off of son Joe was another victory in itself. Heggs meanwhile steadily dropped back but renewed pace found on the prior race on his VFR meant he was feeling a fair bit stronger on the lighter weight RD. It wasn’t till the last couple of laps that Graham Acott managed to get past into the hair pin. Following Acott round for a lap, Heggs decided to play to his strengths and passed him in the back straight and attempted a blocked entry into the last corner to prevent Acott dive bombing him. This should have worked but shedding too much speed gave Acott the opportunity to attempt going round the outside which he cut a bit tight knocking handle bars on the way round. There wasn’t much hope of a counter to that so Heggs kept it upright for a 4th being happy to be getting a race out of Acott even when he is a bit touchy feely. 

Woodward reclaims 1st  - PJM Photography

Heggs  - PJM Photography

More consistent laps were put in by Williams in the production class with more race wins for Joe and Ziv continued to pick up the pace on her RC30.

Williams  - PJM Photography

Joe on the ZXR400  - PJM Photography

While all of this was going on, Murf was watching. Word of mouth had brought him here and despite being new to riding on the road, the challenge of motorsports was a tempting prospect. With the CRMC offering a novice rider a free first weekend racing and the RAF Classic Racing Team offering support with bike setup, advise and a spare Yamaha XJ600 no less, it all seemed too easy. Murf watched and he loved every minute of it. From the controlled chaos of setting up, through the endless classes of different classic racing machines, it was fun to watch and so tempting to join in. Track walks, BBQ and chats over a few social cold ciders saw Murf quickly jell with the team so it should be no surprise the Murf closed May with a shiny new Novice ACU license having completed his assessment at Mallory park. We all look forward to seeing you try to tame the teams XJ600, affectionately named the HMS Blue Whale.

GP Originals

Andy Green was at Castle Combe this month for the GP Originals second round. 

Greens Yamaha TZ350 was showing some gearbox issues during practice as it refused to stay in 6th gear under load. With the help of Roy Dale on the tools, it was decided to work around this issue by reducing the gearing on the rear by 3 teeth and hopefully complete the weekend using the gearbox as a 5 speed. Despite this, the timed qualifying that followed ended with a respectable 11th, meaning Green could still be competitive despite his less than ideal setup. 

The now very tall first gear made itself very apparent from the start of race 1, giving green some work to do just to regain his starting position. Soon Green was trying to exploit mistakes and dodge rapidly closed doors for 10th place when his bike bogged down coming out of the last chicane which led him to dropping 4 places. Green managed to keep hold to 14th to the checkered flag after a punishing ride. 

Hoping to find a couple more places on Sunday, Green instead found out just how broken his  gearbox could get. On the penultimate lap Green lost complete use of the gearbox and being stuck in first was forced to make a hasty retirement to the infield. Initial investigation does not look promising, this could be an expensive one.

Not promising for Greens gearbox

NLR

The No Limits racing club saw a large group of RAFMSA riders descend on Cadwell Park.

Chester Norton didn’t step off his class podium all weekend sampling all three steps with a 2nd, 3rd and finally a 1st in class for the pre injection 600’s. Also on a medium capacity machine was Andrew Castle representing on his Suzuki SV650 out on the packed twins and super twins grid. 

David Langley took his Aprilia out in the Pirelli Super Series 1000 finding himself battling for a 7th place in the first race’s large grid which he soon followed with a pair of 2nd place trophies for a successful racing weekend.

Paul Cunvin, Alan Sharp and James Leslie were all out in the pro shop cup 1000 for the first race where Cunvin claimed 2nd with Sharp and Leslie claiming 23rd and 27th respectively. The following two races saw a smaller grid with Leslie claiming 19th in one and Cunvin finding 11th in the other.

 

2 rounds of the GB Racing interservices championships were also complete with the Royal Air Force taking the lead from the British Army. Dave Langley and Paul Cunvin both secured places on the podium placing them 1st and second in the championship. Alan Sharp was also out having just rejoined the sport after spending a few years away from racing. Coming back with a bang,  Sharp finished a very respectable 6th place. Norton joined the Inter service team after a successful year at North Gloucester. Hitting the ground running with a 7th.

New rider Kim Lawton found herself getting stuck in racing with the Army whilst road racing regular Rad Hughes and James Leslie all brought home much needed points for the RAFMSA.

A strong RAFMSA finish

Closing

A busy May approaches with the first road racing of the year on its way and a host of club racing. We will be back with more in June to keep you updated.

The Royal Air Force MotorSport Association supports tens of disciplines both two and four wheeled. More information on the RAFMSA can be found on Facebook, the Sports federation home page, Twitter and can be found with a quick search on MODNet. 

For more from the RAF Classic racing team race in the Classic Racing Motorcycle Club (CRMC) offer live timing and have race results going back years, you can find more the team on Facebook Twitter Blogger and YouTube.

There is a strong contingent of the RAFMSA MCRR in the MSV, they can be found on Instagram with some fantastic video shared by competitor James on his YouTube channel. The Tri-service challenge is also held at MSV meetings with an Instagram page of its own.

All serving RAF team members race under the banner of the Royal Air Force Motorsports Association (RAFMSA) alongside our veteran former members and associate members. If you are serving and wish to get involved with motorsports you can find all the contact details you will need on the RAFMSA website or get in contact directly with us.

 This blog post was written by Royal Air Force Motorsports Association Motorcycle Road Racing members whose names are featured above then compiled and edited by Gavin Heggs.