Quadruple Champions in 2024

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!

Photo by Graham Mallen

Straight after the Stars qualifying we were into our first race, Darley Cup Race 1. With a 26-point championship lead over Nick Clare and a possible 60-points up for grabs over the weekend, our intention was to secure an unassailable lead as soon as possible. A decent start saw us enter the Wilson chicane in 3rd position (2nd in class) with Nick leading overall. Unfortunately, out of Park corner on the opening lap Nick lost the rear end and went down - with Wilson Trophy rider Jordan Poole getting caught up in the crash. We were now the overall race leader so just put in consistent laps to bring the bike home. We took the win from Aron Redmond, with Joseph Lord taking third.

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.

Photo by Graham Mallen

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!

Photo by Ian Kinnear

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... ;-)

Photo by Kevin Randle

​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!

Where did the summer go??

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!

Photo by Kevin Randle

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.