BEMSEE Thunderbikes Brands Hatch GP - Race Review (2016)

At the start of the season, the BEMSEE Thunderbikes Brands Hatch GP round was noted to be the highlight of our 2016 season. With the GP layout rarely used due to noise complaints, it had been 18 years since we had raced on this particular circuit layout (back in 1998 - when Dave Jnr was 18 himself!).

Leaving from our Northwich base, the 220+ mile journey took us over 5.5 hours due to a crashed Toyota Yaris and, later on, a fireball of a Luton box van! We arrived at the circuit around 7pm on the Thursday evening. All of the parking spaces next to the mains power outlets had already been taken but we managed to park close to where we were based at the BEMSEE Brands Indy meeting, so all was good.

The Friday morning test day provided a damp start. When we signed on, we were informed that the Brands Indy circuit (rather than Brands GP circuit) was to be used for the Friday test day, which was a surprise. With a different circuit layout being used and the race day weather forecast looking dry, we were not sure how much value would be gained from going out, so decided to let the track dry a bit before heading out on track.

As little Lucy was already bored of being contained in the caravan, Dave Jnr took her for a walk to the grasslands on the inside of Druids corner. Whilst over there, they witnessed cement dust being laid at Graham Hill corner, followed by the water truck washing the track clean. With this new info, we decided to fit the wet tyres and do a shakedown test on our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin (just to make sure everything was OK). After doing approx 7 laps in the session, we pulled in as the track was starting to get a dry line and we didn't want to ruin the wet rear tyre.

The track being watered...

...so we fitted the wets...

...which struggled with the conditions

Next, the rain fell again, so... with the bike and rider feeling great, we decided to take an early finish - we scruitineered the bike and signed on early (around 3pm), then tidied and packed away and we treated the girls to a trip to the Bluewater shopping mall (and earned some brownie points in the process!), before stopping at The Green Man pub in Longfield for a nice meal on the way back to the circuit.

On Saturday, we were out for qualifying in the very first session at 09:00. The track conditions were damp but quickly drying so we went out on dry tyres (the correct choice!) and were reducing our lap times in chunks of 2 or 3 seconds at a time. We managed to complete seven laps in the session, with the final lap being our quickest. We qualified in 13th position for the first race, which was the head of the fifth row with the three-riders-per-row format being used on the narrow start/finish straight.

Before we could get our first race completed the heavy rain landed, around an hour before we were due out on track, so a change to wets was required. The track conditions were nasty and slippy, with hardly any feedback. The first attempt at running the race was red-flagged on lap one and then restarted after a ten-minute delay. After the restart we managed to find a rhythm and kept to it. There were 9 fallers in the race but we kept it upright and came across the finishing line in 9th place! Shortly after we finished our first race, the sunshine came out and started quickly drying the track. There was no more rain forecasted so it looked like we'd have a dry weekend from hereon  :-)

With a long break until the second race of the day, the "Two Daves" went for a walk around the circuit, through the woods, got lost, then eventually popped out by Dingle Dell at the back of the circuit. After watching a couple of races, we headed back to the paddock to change the bike onto dry tyres.

There is a race track somewhere around here...

When we got back to the paddock, we had a visit from a very efficient photographer who provided the following printed (yes, actually physically printed!) photos from our first race earlier in the day.

Saturday race two was dry as expected. After getting a good start and initially being involved in a large battle spanning from 8th to 15th places, we slowly lost touch of the group. Throughout the battle we managed to take 2.5 seconds off our personal best lap time and finished the race in 13th place - 0.095 ahead of 14th and 0.759 ahead of 15th!

With the day over we cleaned up then headed to the Saturday awards presentation in the Kentagon pub. To our surprise, we were awarded a Special Spot Prize!

We awoke on Sunday to find that someone had left us a gift by our caravan. Unfortunately, they didn't let us keep it ;-)

The new Kawasaki H2

"Big Dave" & "Little Lucy"

Due to delays in Saturday's schedule, four races were carried onto the Sunday programme - so as we were supposed to be the first race out, we were now the fifth race out on track. This worked in our favour as by the time our race had been called up, the sunshine was out in full force but there were still strong gusty winds around the circuit. We managed to get a good start and made a few places - which we slowly lost over the next few laps. The battle for 6th place was just ahead of us, but we couldn't hang on! Another new personal best was set during the race - 1.529 seconds faster than our previous personal best lap - and we captured another 13th place finish at the flag.

In the last race of the weekend, we managed to take a further 1.265 seconds off our personal best lap (which was a whopping 5.5 seconds faster than our qualifying time) and finished the race in 11th place. This was our best race of the weekend as we were feeling comfortable on the bike and running quickly without making mistakes. In the second half of the race we were even catching the guys in the battle for 8th place. Overall, it's been a fantastic weekend and definitely lived up to its expectation of being a season highlight!

Photo by David Watson

Our next race meeting is Darley Moor Round 7 on Sunday 4th September, where we have a chance of being crowned as a 2016 Darley Moor champion! Wish us luck!!