Over the weekend, more sorting and tidying was done in order to get the workshop into a position where we can start the pre-season preparation work on our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin. There is still a bit more organising to be done but I'm sure you will agree that it is now in a much better state than previously!

Whilst the workshop was being prepared, the spare engine was sent away to the Poole Performance Centre for tuning and rebuilding in our desired '2014 specification' and has now been safely returned to us. The '2014 specification' differs from our '2013 specification' in that it has revised cyclinder head porting, changes to the inlet valve springs and a Sigma Slipper Clutch fitted (in addition to the modifications that were present in our '2013 specification' race engine - JE 12.5:1 pistons, lightweight flywheel, billet inlet cam, etc).

Now that we're in a position where the bike can be worked on, the next step will be to remove the main engine so that it can also be upgraded to '2014 specification'. Unfortunately, due to working (circa 180 miles away!) in London during the week, preparation work on the Kawasaki Supertwin can only progress during weekends - so the coming weekend has been planned out for me! :-)

And then the weekend after (Saturday 1st February), we will be attending the Darley Moor 2013 Awards Presentation Dinner to collect our two 'Championship Runners Up' trophies.

The conversion is now complete and our existing prefab concrete garage has been converted into the workshop that will form the home of our racing efforts.

I started by completely emptying the garage of the existing contents, including wooden racking - which at first I thought might be useful, but on closer inspection was not fit for our purposes and needed to be removed. Dave Carson Snr kindly put his years of electrical experience to use by fitting some additional light fixtures, before I prepped and painted the walls with 3 coats of B&Q's finest (cheapest!) white emulsion paint.

Next on the list was some traditional 'slate grey' garage paint which was carefully applied and looked great for a couple of days - until it rained and rising damp entered the garage and peeled off certain areas of the painted floor. So the floor was scrubbed clean of all loose paint and then carefully prepared once again in order to apply a generous coating of damp proofing.

As the damp proofing is not hard-wearing and does not accept paint very well, our solution was to fit some foam-backed carpet as an alternative - which I think looks pretty neat!

With the workshop now getting there, and with the xmas break coming to an end, it was time to start moving the remaining items from Nana Carson's garage into its new home. But as you can see, even though everything now sits under the same roof, there is still a lot of sorting to be done!

Happy New Year to all followers of Two Daves Racing! With your help, our YouTube channel has just passed 10,000 video views! It's a great way to start 2014 and as usual, we will be continuing to publish videos throughout the 2014 season. Take a look at our video channel here


We have now decided on a provisional calendar for our 2014 season, which looks like the following:

Saturday 15th & Sunday 16th March - NG Rounds 1 & 2 (Brands Hatch Indy)
Sunday 30th March - Darley Moor Round 1
Saturday 5th April - NG Round 3 (Oulton Park)
Monday 21st April - Darley Moor Round 2
Saturday 10th May & Sunday 11th May - NG Rounds 4 & 5 (Cadwell Park)
Saturday 21st June & Sunday 22nd June - NG Rounds 6 & 7 (Castle Combe)
Saturday 28th June & Sunday 29th June - Darley Moor Rounds 3 & 4
Saturday 26th July & Sunday 27th July - NG Rounds 8 & 9 (Donington Park National)
Saturday 16th August & Sunday 17th August - NG Rounds 10 & 11 (Anglesey Coastal)
Monday 25th August - Darley Moor Round 5
Saturday 13th September & Sunday 14th September - NG Rounds 12 & 13 (Pembrey)
Sunday 21st September - Darley Moor Round 6
Saturday 11th October - NG Round 14 (Thruxton)
Sunday 12th October - Darley Moor Round 7