Glorious sunshine welcomed our arrival to Darley Moor Round 6. With the usual crew not arriving until Sunday morning, David Jnr was tasked with setting up on the Saturday evening (albeit with some help from Tim Poole and Ket to get the awning up). We had already fitted wet tyres to our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin as Sunday's weather forecast was looking pretty horrid.

Sunday morning arrived without the promised rain but the forecast still said that rain would be arriving, so we put the spare wheels on warmers and made the decision to change to dry tyres as late as possible.

The Formula Darley qualifying was dry. After rebuilding the front brakes we needed to spend a few laps bedding in brake pads before getting some faster laps in. We qualified in 2nd position, 0.44 of a second off pole.

For the Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying, the sky got dark and spot of rain began to appear. With a dark visor on it was difficult to gauge the track conditions but we took a few chances and managed to qualify in 2nd position again.

By the time we had got back to the paddock, the rain had stopped, so we decided to leave the dry tyres on for our first race which followed only 15 minutes afterwards.

Heading into Formula Darley Race 1 the light rain appeared again. A good start got us into 2nd position into the first chicane, behind Michael Brookes and just ahead of Brad Vicars. Coming into the hairpin on the first lap, Brad came passed to take second position and then a close encounter between Brad and Michael on the exit of the hairpin elevated Brad into the lead, myself into 2nd position and Michael into 3rd position. With the rain getting heavier throughout the race, the positions then stayed as they were, with us crossing the finishing line in 2nd place.

With the weather conditions now firmly established as being wet, the organisers declared all subsequent races as wet races. A quick change to wet tyres and we were ready for the rest of the days races.

It had been a while since we had experienced a properly wet race, so in Mini Sound Of Thunder Race 1, it took us a while to get into conditions. By the time we got into the swing of things and moved up into 2nd position, we were 12 seconds down on the leader. Feeling comfortable, we pushed further and reduced our lap times further and closed the gap over the next five laps to be only 4 seconds at the flag. We had ran out of laps but we got another 2nd place finish and the fastest lap of race.

Formula Darley Race 2 was a race with lots of backmarkers which made life interesting. Unlike the previous race, there was a feeling that we had to try and push this time, rather than the lap times just coming to us. By pushing, we made lots of little mistakes and were struggling to keep up with Michael Brookes in 2nd position, until on the last lap Michael's throttle cable snapped, which promoted us back into 2nd place which we kept until the flag.

The last race of the day was Mini Sound Of Thunder Race 2. By now the conditions were pretty grim but we lapped quicker than in Formula Darley Race 2. Even so, we couldn't hold onto leader Brad Vicars who took the final race win, with us again finishing in 2nd place.

With a solid brace of 2nd place finishes throughout the day, we are now standing in 2nd position in both the Formula Darley and Mini Sound of Thunder championships:

MINI SOUND OF THUNDER
Brad Vicars    69
David Carson 64
Stuart Hall     38

FORMULA DARLEY
Brad Vicars    72
David Carson 60
Stuart Hall     37

As a nice bonus, we even get a few mentions in the official BikeSport News Race Review.

And with someone braving the rain to take some videos of the meeting, there are a few flashes of us in this trackside video too  :-)

There is a bit of a long summer break now, with our next race meeting (Darley Moor Round 7) not taking place until Sunday 20th September. We'll keep you posted with any interesting happenings in the meantime!

The cause of the Darley Moor Round 3 Engine Failure has now been identified as a snapped crankshaft. The good news is that when the crank snapped, no other internal engine damage was caused which will help to lower the costs of the required engine rebuild. With the crankshaft being a known weak-point of tuned ER6 engines (and with the exact mileage on this crank being unknown), we will be replacing the crank with a brand new item in order to reduce the chances of this occurring again.

In advance of Darley Moor Round 6 this coming weekend, another onboard camera has been added to our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin to provide a different view of the action. The process of fitment was very similar to the forward-facing onboard camera that is mounted on the front fairing. This camera mount will allow us to film forward (to view rider body movement and placement on the machine) as well as being able to film rearwards if needed (to see what is happening behind us).

The bike is fully prepped for the upcoming Darley Moor meeting. A front brake refresh/rebuild (with new fluid and pads), an oil change, a check over and a good clean mean that she is ready to go!

And she appears to be covered in glorious technology...   :-)

Here are some photos from the fourth and fifth race meetings of 2015, taken by official Darley photographer Tony Else...

The last weekend in June hosted a double-header for the Darley Moor Club Championships, with rounds 4 and 5 taking place. It was a weekend of mixed weather (but mostly good), a pole position, some fastest laps, a brace of runner-up finishes, a solitary win - and no broken bikes! :-)

ROUND 4
After a six week break off racing the first few laps of qualifying were a bit rusty, but we were soon back on form and managed to take pole position for the Formula Darley races.

The Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying session was next but only lasted for three laps before Tim Poole locked handlebars with another rider and the pair of them crashed out. All track activity stopped for 90 minutes whilst the air ambulance came and took the unlucky rider to hospital with a broken femur and arm. Tim Poole was OK but his machine was damaged beyond repair at the circuit, so that was the end of his weekend. The qualifying session was re-run for an additional four laps, but after a moment where we almost ran into back of classic bike we pulled in and accepted our 3rd place grid position (7th on the combined grid).

In Formula Darley race 1, we had an OK start and were running in 3rd place but were slowly catching up to 2nd placed Stuart Hall. At Park corner on the final lap, Stuart outbraked himself whilst trying to overtake a 125GP machine. We took the opportunity to take a tight line and make a pass - as we did the 125GP machine swung back onto the racing line - resulting in a "close encounter of the 125 kind". With a good run for the rest of the lap, we managed to catch Stuart again but were unable to make a pass, crossing the finishing line only 0.15 of a second behind and less than two seconds behind race winner Brad Vicars.

In the first of the Mini Sound of Thunder races, Stuart Hall got into the lead from the start and we got into a battle with Brad, which meant that Stuart was able to sneak away. After a few laps, we stopped wasting time overtaking each other and worked together to close the gap to the leader, which was accomplished on lap 7 of 8. With the battle for the win now on, the overtaking moves were back on! When we got onto the back straight, we were in the lead. A yellow flag on the last corner meant that a last corner overtaking manoeuvre was not possible, so we kept our line (relatively) clean and managed to win the race by only 0.10 of a second! We got the victory but missed out on the fastest lap by 0.01 second, with a 1'02.93 lap.

Formula Darley race 2 was a solid but largely uneventful race. Stuart Hall pulled out of the race on lap 3 with a mechanical issue and we did our best to keep Brad honest, crossing the flag 2.61 behind him at the end of the race.

Mini Sound of Thunder race 2 provided us with the closet finish of our weekend - a gap of just 0.06 at the flag! Unfortunately, we came in 2nd place but we did get the fastest lap of the race with a 1'02.93 (exactly the same laptime as in Mini Sound of Thunder race 1).

ROUND 5
Despite perfect racing conditions for Round 4, rain fell overnight for Round 5. It wasn't to last, however, as the track was only wet for qualifying and had dried by the time the races started.

In a reversal of order, the Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying (and races) were first at Round 5. The wet laps were our first wets laps of the season (believe it or not!). We slowly got ourselves up to speed and as we got used to the wet riding conditions we secured 3rd position (8th on the combined grid), one second off pole position.

The track conditions had already started to improve when we went out for the Formula Darley qualifying, with the track being damp and the only puddles being off the racing line. As soon as we got back into the paddock, we switched to dry tyres which stayed on for the rest of the day.

After laying 3rd in Mini Sound of Thunder race 1 coming out of the first chicane, it took us until lap 7 of 8 to catch up with 2nd placed Stuart Hall. With good drive onto the straight, we took 2nd place and managed to stay ahead until the flag (0.76 of a second of Stuart).

In Formula Darley race 1, we were again 3rd out of the first chicane. We managed to catch and pass both Stuart Hall and Brad Vicars to take the lead! After a great battle with the lead changing hands many times, we were leading into the final corner when we were too cautious overtaking a backmarker. We took the flag in 2nd place, half a second behind Brad at the line.

Mini Sound of Thunder race 2 was most definitely a low point of the Darley Moor club's organisation skills - the phrase "couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery" would fit well here to describe the situation. There were, of course, incidents that caused this. The first of which was a collision between two racers on the sighting lap - two riders were weaving from left to right to warm up their tyres and they crashed into each other! This brought a halt to proceedings whilst the riders were carted off in the ambulance and ONE of the machines was cleared up. The other machine had managed to clear two fences and was sitting in the field on the inside of the circuit, so the organisers decided to leave it there until all races had been completed.

So then the race was restarted, we got a good start and were approaching the final corner on lap 2 when seven bikes were cruising with their hands up (as if the race had been stopped) - then they suddenly started going again. And then half a lap later the race was stopped. Apparently a faulty light board was intermittently showing as red, which caused the confusion.

So we got back to the start line again and there was a further delay. Our engine was getting hot so we switched it off until we headed out onto the sighting lap - except that the organisers had decided NOT to run a sighting lap, so we were actually racing - except we didn't know until the end of lap 1 when we were not flagged off the circuit! So, we were now racing again and had dawdled around for a lap. Fortunately, due to the confusion, most of my competitors were close by to me, so we managed to finish the race and salvage a 2nd place finish from the mess. Some good news was that we managed to record the fastest lap of the race :-)

And it seems that we saved the best race until last! Formula Darley race 2 had 30 changes of lead throughout the 8 lap race (Yes - 30! See the video here). In an epic duel that went down to the final corner of the final lap, we came out in 2nd place, 0.16 of a second behind the race winner at the finishing line.

With a fantastic weekend of racing over, we had accumulated: 1x win, 6x 2nds & 1x 3rd as well as a pole position and some fastest laps. The net result is that we lead the Mini Sound of Thunder championship (by a single point) and are in 2nd Position in Formula Darley championship.

All onboard race videos have been uploaded to our YouTube channel.

Our next race meeting will be Darley Moor Round 6 on Sunday 26th July.

We have also received some bad news about the BEMSEE Brands Hatch GP race meeting. Our entry into the meeting has been refused due to an oversubscribed field, with priority being given to riders competing in the entire BEMSEE championship series  :-(