Darley Moor - Round 3 Race Review (2017)

The hottest weekend of the year welcomed Round 3 of the Darley Moor 2017 club championships.  As usual, we headed to the circuit the day before - but only 3 miles after setting off we had to pull over to deal with a seized rear brake caliper!

Ready to roll...

...but stopped after 3 miles!

With that small issue dealt with, we continued onto Darley Moor and managed to get scrutineered and signed on before closing time. With the awning and caravan setup, we wandered the paddock and chatted to friends and fellow competitors whilst Lucy continued her racing apprenticeship by putting more miles on her balance bike.

On Sunday race day, the sun was shining brightly and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! Race day was also Father's Day - so David Jnr got extra cuddles, some new socks & some bottles of real ale (for when the racing was finished!).

A new change for Round 3 was the combining of Formula Darley and Mini Sound of Thunder qualifying into a single session - so only one session instead of the usual two. It seemed to work out better though, as the lack of F125 and classic bikes on track allowed us to get more flying laps in and was a much safer option. So I think it was a good choice - even if I do prefer as much track time as I can get! In the ten minute session we qualified as the fastest 650 which put us in pole position in the Mini Sound of Thunder class (10th on combined grid) and 2nd on the Formula Darley grid behind the 250GP bike of Chris Moore.

Tyres struggled to provide decent grip...

The first race of the day was Formula Darley. We got a decent start and entered the chicane in third place. By the end of the opening lap, we had overtaken Joe Walton to take second place behind leader Chris Moore. Throughout the race, our Kawasaki ER650 Supertwin was feeling a bit sluggish and the heat was making hard work for the tyres. We were not able to keep up with Chris, who took the win by 6.15 seconds at the flag. We finished in 2nd place with Joe Walton crossing the line 1.79 seconds behind us to take third.

Photo by Graham Mallen

Photo by Pez N Helen Anson

Returning to the pits, we discovered that the exhaust had broken...

We re-riveted the exhaust and drilled a couple of new holes to add additional support, in the hope that we could patch the exhaust to last until the end of the race meeting.

In the following Mini Sound of Thunder race, we got boxed in from the start but managed to stay in 3rd place out of the chicane. On lap 2 (around 1:38 in the video below), we heard the exhaust can fail again. After a cursory look to check that nothing was hanging off, we continued racing.

Due to getting stuck in a battle with Ian Robinson (who was racing in the separate Sound of Thunder class) we lost around five seconds (4.63 seconds at the end of lap 6) on the race class leader. When we finally got a clear run, with only two laps left, we were catching the race leader at a rate of 1.3-1.4 seconds a lap - but we ran out of time and laps - so had to settle for 2nd place (and the fastest lap of the race), crossing the line 1.93 seconds behind race winner Joe Walton, with Jason Wilkes taking the final podium spot.

Photo by Pez N Helen Anson

Photo by Pez N Helen Anson

On closer inspection of the exhaust when we returned to the paddock, we had no choice except to withdraw from the rest of the meeting on safety grounds (both for us and our fellow competitors).

We did manage to win a couple of trophies and capture a few points, but overall it was a disappointing race meeting. After 3 rounds (of 7), the championship standings are as follows:

FORMULA DARLEY - TOP 5
Chris Moore    38
David Carson  34
Jamie Hodson 18
Joe Walton     10
Jack Petrie       9

MINI SOUND OF THUNDER - TOP 5
David Carson  34
Stuart Hall      18
Jamie Hodson 18
Joe Walton     18
Jack Petrie      14

Our next race meeting is NG Round 5 at Castle Combe on Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th July, with Darley Moor Round 4 following shortly after on Sunday 16th July.