Now that the season has come to a close, we have been able to take a look back at the 2024 season and to summarise the achievements that have been made in our most successful season ever!

It was a very busy year as we competed in eight championship classes across three different organisations. We will start by highlighting the final championship results, which were:

• Aintree '750cc Twins' champions
• Aintree '700cc Supertwins' champions
• Darley Moor '700cc Twins' champions
• Darley Moor 'Darley Cup' champions
• Wirral 100 'Pre-2011 Supersport' - 2nd in championship
• Wirral 100 '820cc Twins' - 3rd in championship
• Darley Moor 'Open 600' - 3rd in championship
• Aintree 'Supersport 600' - 6th in championship

​These fantastic achievements mean that we have now won 20 championships (and 35 "end of year" trophies) from six different organisations:

• 25 from Darley Moor (13 Championships & 12 Runner-up)
• 3 from NG Road Racing (2 Championships & 1 3rd-place)
• 3 from Wirral 100 (1 Championship, 1 2nd-place & 1 3rd-place)
• 2 from Aintree
• 1 from Auto 66
• 1 from Junior Roadracing Association (JRA)

Further details regarding these achievements can be found on the updated Team & Rider Overview webpage.

During the year we added to our tally of race wins, adding another 22 wins to reach a new total of 183 race wins throughout our entire career!

Drilling down into the statistics a bit further - during 2024 we:

• Entered 84 races
  • Started 76 races
  • DNS'd in 5 races
  • 3 races were cancelled by the organisers (ignoring the cancelled Aintree meeting!)
• ​Won 22 of the races we started (28.95% win rate)
• Podium'd in 47 of the races we started (61.84% podium rate)
• Finished 75 of the races we started (98.68% finishing rate)
• Crash DNF'd in 0 races (0.0% crash rate - note: our only crash was in a qualifying session)
• Mechanical DNF'd in 0 races (0.0% Mechanical DNF rate)
• Claimed a total of 27 event trophies

This season we won races with three different clubs in the same season, which was a first for us!

Throughout the season we also managed to break a lap record (as well as our personal records - more on those later!):

• The Aintree '700cc Twins' lap record was broken at Round 1 and currently stands at 1:00.107

​This lap record is displayed in both the race programs and on the Aintree website.

Taking a look back to our pre-season goals, we advised that "the stopwatch will be the gauge of our success". This is how we have performed:

• Darley Moor lap times. We were the first (and are the only) rider to ever break the 1-minute barrier on a Supertwin-type machine. There was some quick competition this season, so the "Unofficial Twin Lap Times" leaderboard now looks as follows...

Thanks for your support!
We have had a fantastic time this season (both on and off track) and are looking forward to seeing what the future holds!

Since this website went live at the start of 2013, we are proud to announce that we have received a fantastic 140,000+ page views from 40,000+ unique visitors. The figures for our YouTube channel are just as impressive with 89,000+ video views (covering 174,000+ minutes) for the 512 videos we have uploaded - which is even more impressive considering that since 2015 our Darley Moor onboard race videos have only been accessible directly via our race reports!

And last but not least I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of my supporters (if you're reading this - then that's you!), Dave Carson Snr, Steph Carson, Lorna Carson & I would particularly like to thank Pomerol Partners, Peraison and Rock Oil for their support.

Here are some photos from the final round of the 2024 Wirral 100 championships, taken by official photographer Neil Lambert...

Our final race meeting of the season took place at the picturesque Anglesey circuit. With it being October - and with the weather likely to be a gamble - we elected to leave the awning at home and booked into a garage for this meeting.

We took a half-day holiday from work and arrived nice and early, but when we arrived were advised that we wouldn't be allowed into the paddock for a while - so we parked up and made a brew to pass the time. Once we were let into the paddock we abandoned the caravan at the first mains hook-up point that we saw and then parked the van behind our main home for the weekend - Garage 12.

​Once we had setup in the garage we noticed that there was a vacant space in-between the race vans, so we decided to manually move the caravan to take advantage of that space and have everything closer together. With that done, we got scrutineered and then fit some low-lap 600 tyres (well... low-lap for us, they'd only done 57-laps compared to the 134-lap-old tyres that were currently fit) onto the Aprilia RS660 wheels. With all jobs done, we popped to the bar for a quick pint and then took advantage of the new heater setup that the "Weekend Warriors" (Andy Barber and Dean Ephgrave) had before retiring to the caravan.

Saturday Race Day
Our garage was shared with fellow-600-racers and thoroughly nice chaps Max Ainscough and Caleb Williams, along with Aintree-champion (and "Stars at Darley" racer) Danny Lewis. It made for a delightful place to be for the weekend.

We were out in the first two sessions of the day, which gave us a chance to reacquaint ourselves with the "International" circuit layout, which we'd last ridden 15 year ago. In the first session we did a best lap of 1'52.7, followed by a 1'46.5 in the second session. For whatever reason - the cooler weather, etc - we seemed to be struggling to get into the swing of things.

Out into the qualifying sessions and we set a 1'41.2 on the Aprilia which qualified us 11th in the Twins class (21st on the combined grid), then we set a 1'38.3 on the Kawasaki which qualified us 5th in the Pre-2011 class (26th on the overall grid).

Just before the races began, light rain began to fall. After a short wait by the organisers, we headed out onto track for 820cc Twins Race 1 with a wet front tyre and a rear dry tyre. This was probably the best choice for us and we finished the race in 9th position.

We were then out in Club Supersport 600 Race 1, so we decided on the same wet-front/dry-rear setup. In the assembly area there was a wide range of tyre options - from full wet to full dry. This was a drier race and the sunshine even made an appearance during the race. We finished the race 4th in class (19th overall).

After the lunch break we headed back on track for 820cc Twins Race 2 on a fully-dry setup. We completed the warm-up lap and formed up on the grid - then were sent back to the paddock. It turned out that there was a power cut across Anglesey and all mains power was out. Luckily we brought the generator with us, so pulled that out of the van to keep the tyres warmers on.

With no resolution in sight, the organisers decided to continue running the meeting using a flag to start the race. After a fairly lonely race we finished 10th in class (14th overall) and set a new Personal Best lap of 1'39.1 along the way.

Our final race of the day was Club Supersport 600 Race 2, which was extremely windy! Once onto the grid, the flag was shown and four riders went! The start was aborted and after completing a total of three warm-up laps we eventually got going for our race. Despite the challenges we managed to finish 3rd in class (17th overall) and captured our first trophy of the weekend!

With the power out, the cafe/bar unfortunately was closed too which meant that the planned party and entertainment never happened - so we treated the kids to a DVD-night in the caravan instead. Then just before 10pm the paddock electricity came back online.


Sunday Race Day
We took part in the optional warm-up session on the Kawasaki, just to get back in the swing of things. We were feeling a bit more comfortable on the bike today which was promising - as the lap times from the Sunday-morning races would determine entry into the various Anglesey Grand races.

Our first race was 820cc Twins Race 3. We had been moved up to 13th on the grid based on our Saturday race results. During the race there were no Twin-class competitors near us but we did managed to have a battle with some Golden Era Supersport riders which was entertaining. We finished 8th in class (13th overall) with a best lap of 1'39.4.

After a short break we headed out for Club Supersport 600 Race 3. Again, we had been moved forward on the grid, this time from 26th to 20th. From the start we managed to tag onto the back of the group ahead which allowed us to set a new Personal Best lap time of 1'36.6 on our way to finishing 4th in class (19th overall). This result secured us 2nd place in the Pre-2011 championship, and Tom Harrison was also confirmed as the championship winner.

With our lap times, we had qualified for the Anglesey Grand races in both the "A" final on the Kawasaki and the "C" final on the Aprilia. We were the 26th qualifier for the "A" final (out of a possible 26 starters) but decided to let a quicker racer (who had crashed in one of the morning races) to join the grid instead of us, which entered us into the "Anglesey Grand Frolic" race instead.

Our first Anglesey Grand race was the "C" final. We made a decent start but lost the tow to the group ahead. With back-to-back races we decided to leave the race early as we were just circulating on our own - which scared a few people into thinking we had crashed as they couldn't see the track exit road from their vantage point (sorry for the scare!).

​We lined up on the Anglesey Grand Frolic grid in Pole Position. After a decent start we managed to hold onto the race lead for the first part of the lap, before falling back to 3rd place by the middle of the opening lap. As the race developed there was a 3-rider battle for 2nd position. We managed to set a new Personal Best lap of 1'35.885 on our way to finishing 3rd place in the race, just 0.502 of a second behind Adam Perks at the flag. Once into the 'parc ferme' we were asked to join a podium celebration - which was nice.

​820cc Twins Race 4 would be our final race of the weekend. After a good result on the Kawasaki in the Anglesey Grand race and with the championship positions cemented we decided to park that bike.

After a decent start we ended up in open space that allowed us to concentrate on just riding, which helped us to set a new Personal Best lap of 1'38.486 on the Aprilia on our way to a 5th place finish (8th overall).

The result also meant that our championship points tally matched with that of 2nd placed Scott McCrory - but based on the countback rules (i.e. most number of wins, then most number of 2nds, etc) Scott retains 2nd and we have finished 3rd in the Twins championship!

With all championship points now allocated, the final point standings look as follows.

Pre-2011 Supersport 600 Championship Standings (Top 5)
Tom Harrison                170
David Carson              131
Matthew Perry               93
Caleb Williams               91
Max Ainscough              42

820cc Twins Championship Standings (Top 5)
Louis Dawson               155
Scott McCrory               103
David Carson              103
Sean Seddon                 75
Oliver Morgan-Edwards   67

With the season now finished, we will gather together some stats regarding the season to produce another "Season Summary" blog. But in the meantime we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters (if you're reading this - then that's you!), Dave Carson Snr, Steph Carson, Lorna Carson & I would particularly like to thank Pomerol Partners, Peraison and Rock Oil for their support. Thank you all for making 2024 another very special year!  :-)

Here are some photos from Darley Moor championship finale, taken by official Darley photographer Tony Else...

As you can tell from the heading title, we have secured another championship in 2024 as we successfully retained Darley Moor's "Darley Cup" championship - which is our 13th Darley Moor championship title (in case you were counting)! This championship adds to the Darley Moor "700cc Twins" and the two Aintree championships previously secured.

​We headed to Darley Moor on the Friday afternoon in advance of the prestigious "Stars at Darley" event, which is an invitation-only event that we had once again been invited to. When we arrived at the circuit entrance we were surprised to see a queue of vans and trucks awaiting entry, which were only allowed into the paddock at 2pm. Heading inside, we found ourselves a space in the paddock, got setup and scrutineered and had some new dry tyres fit onto the Kawasaki Supersport machine. After watching some Friday practice action from the Japanese MotoGP on the laptop, we headed to bed for a long and very cold night in the caravan...

Saturday Race Day
Awaking to a clear and dry day was a relief for an October meeting. We were out onto track first for the Open 600 qualifying session. It was windy and cold and we didn't really commit, which unfortunately showed when we qualified in 9th position on the grid with a 1:02.83 lap time.

Fortunately we had the opportunity to head back out on track for the Stars at Darley free practice session, which allowed us to get some extra track time and get further into the groove. We lowered our lap time to 1:01.86 - which was still far away from where it needed to be...

Our first go on the Aprilia was next up, for the combined Darley Cup and 700cc Twins qualifying session. We stayed out for as long as we could and eventually found a good feeling (and some clear track) and set a lap time of 1:01.94 which put us in pole position for both classes!

Now for the big challenge - qualifying for the Stars at Darley race. This is our sixth "Stars" event and we've managed to qualify for all previous events. We headed out and managed to put in a lap time within the 59-second bracket, then came back to the assembly grid to check whether that would be enough - it wouldn't be, so we headed back out and put two more qualifying laps in with the best being a 59.66. At the end of the session the starting grid was announced and we weren't on it... We had missed the qualification time by 0.018 of a second! The good news, I guess, was that we would be able to watch the Stars races for the first time in a while!

After a short break we were out for 700cc Twins Race 1. Unfortunately the camera battery ran out, which is a shame because we had some great races through the day. A mediocre start saw us further down in the pack whilst Aprilia-mounted Andy Whale took over the race lead at the front of the pack. By the time we had moved into 2-nd position overall by the end of the second lap (of the six lap race), Andy had a 3.11 second lead. We started to reel in Andy but wouldn't have enough time to catch him. On the penultimate lap, BSB-superstar (I believe that is the correct term) Dave Glossop came passed on his BMW F900R machine and took 2nd overall, leaving us to cross the line 2nd in class.

Almost immediately, we were out for Open 600 Race 1. When we headed out onto the warm-up lap we noticed some fluid spilled on the track - after advising the organisers we were sent back to the paddock to wait until the spillages were cleared. After a short break we headed back onto the grid and started the race. After a decent start we only overtook Adam Mather during the race on lap 4. For the rest of the race things were quite calm. Our speed was still somewhat lacking - but as the rider with the 7th fastest lap time we finished the race in 7th position, so we couldn't ask for more.

It was now time for the feature "Stars at Darley" race. As mentioned earlier, we were not competing in it - which may have been for the best as 2023 Stars-winner Charlie Nesbitt set a new outright circuit lap record of 51.97 seconds on his way to victory by 11.03 seconds. He also lapped half of the field on his way to victory!

Immediately after the Stars race we were out in Darley Cup Race 2. With a 41-point championship lead and only 45-points left, we just needed a Top 7 finish in order to wrap up the championship. After a good start we took the lead and led from start to finish - crossing the line to take the win and to become the 2024 Darley Cup champions!

After only a small time to celebrate we had another race to compete in, which was Twins Race 2. With the (self-induced) pressure of qualifying for the Stars race and of securing the Darley Cup championship now removed, we really enjoyed this race. After a good start we ended up in a 3-way battle between Andy Whale, Dave Glossop and ourselves. Throughout the race we were continually trying overtaking manoeuvres on Dave, which he was immediately fighting back and regaining the lead. Then on the last lap we took a sweeping line around Park corner to get a good drive and draft towards the back esses and finally took the race lead. On the final lap we set the fastest lap of the race (1:00.90) and took the race win by just 0.39 of a second, with Andy Whale just a further 0.66 of a second behind.

You can see the final corner of the race in the video below, with the 3-rider lead pack approaching some backmarkers.

Our final race of the day was Open 600 Race 2. We got an OK start but got boxed in towards the Wilson chicane and then went wide at Park corner on the opening lap, which pushed us back to 12th position! However, with the pressure removed we were feeling comfortable on the bike and during the race managed to make our way back to 6th position at the chequered flag! At least we got an interesting onboard video from the mess we created... ;-)

​With the Saturday races completed, we cleaned the bikes, popped open a bottle of bubbly and watched some more MotoGP footage from Japan. It didn't take long for the sun to go down and for the chilly weather to arrive - which was clearly shown by how hard Dave Snr was trying to keep warm!

Sunday Race Day
There was overnight rain tapping on the caravan roof, but to our surprise the ground was dry on Sunday morning. The Sunday was treated as a new race meeting, so we had to take part in qualifying again. In the Open 600 qualifying session we put in a 1:01.10 lap which put us 7th on the grid and then on the Aprilia we set a 1:01.30 lap time that qualified us in pole position for the 700cc Twins and Darley Cup races.

Our first race was Darley Cup Race 1. On the opening lap we took the lead and set a fastest lap of 1:01.18 on the way to winning the race by 24.59 seconds.

In Twins Race 1 we had an OK start but then took our time to carefully pass the 650cc Twins riders (Anthony Thane and Daniel Pearson) who were involved in a super-close championship battle that we didn't want to affect in any way. By the time we moved into 2nd position on track, Andy Whale had a lead of over 3 seconds with only 3 laps left in the race. We tried to catch Andy - and even put in a fastest lap of 1:00.90 along the way - but essentially we ran out of laps. We caught up to the back wheel of Andy and crossed the line just 0.46 of a second behind. We finished in 2nd position but it was another fun race!

Next up was Open 600 Race 1, where we had the opportunity to secure 3rd position in that championship class. We headed out to the grid and rain sprinkles started to fall, then 30 seconds later it got heavier... The organisers called us back to the paddock but by the time we got back to our awning the rain had stopped.

When we were called back to the grid we went with dry tyres (as did everyone else). A good start put us into 6th position, then on lap 2 we moved up to 5th position where we remained until the chequered flag. The result was sufficient to secure 3rd position in championship!

With the weather forecast showing that miserable weather was soon to arrive, we made the decision to call it a day and to pack everything away whilst it was still dry.

After all remaining races had run, the final Darley Moor championship standings are as follows.

700cc Twins Championship (Top 5)
David Carson   138
Aron Redmond    65
Andy Whale        54
Tom Hodge         43
Daniel Rossi        32

Darley Cup Championship (Top 5)
David Carson  151
Nick Clare          80
Joe Lord            71
Aron Redmond   56
Mark Pattinson   30

Open 600 Championship (Top 5)
Mark Goodings  131
Joe Holdsworth 125
David Carson   92
Adam Mather     75
Adam Green      48

Our next time out on track will be our final event of the season - at the Wirral 100 "Anglesey Grand" meeting on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th October.

Here are some more photos from the tricky conditions of Darley Moor Round 4, taken by Colin Lindley.