It was much drier than the trial I did in High Wycombe 2 weeks ago. I grew up doing trials in the south and the terrain down there does suit me a bit better(although I have to add that I’m no Dougie Lampkin, I would never have got anywhere near as far in trials as I have done in road racing). There are too many rocks and streams up here!! The wood in Wycombe was an absolute bog hole with most sections being tackled in fourth gear with the throttle hard on, feathering the clutch to get some traction. Although it all sounds like trials is about banging the throttle open when it’s wet there is a certain finesse required. At the Wycombe event I forgot this for the first lap and struggled with my road racer technique of hitting everything as fast as possible! It took a while but I calmed down and got there in the end eventually winning the novice class at the end of the event.

Jo took the pictures today.

Is it a bird, is it a plane or is it an outcast from the cool runnings Jamacian bobsleigh team!!

You may notice that my trials gear looks like I’ve had It since 1995!! There is a really good reason for that!!

Pre season training is going well I’ve managed to lose a stone and a half since November. Hoping to have the suspension back this week so the bike can start looking like a motorbike again!

I’ll keep you posted on the result of the trial once the results come through.

GBRacing, producers of the premier crash protection components, are the latest company to support Mackers in his 2012 campaign.

GBRacing supplies many top racing teams worldwide with their range of MCRCB Approved, Composite Secondary Engine Covers.

“Our Design, Manufacturing process and Advanced Materials choice significantly help to reduce Oil spills, both on and off the Track. Enhancing Safety for all the riders is our top priority.”

GBRacing will be supplying Ian with the latest specification engine covers for his Kawasaki mounts this season.

Ian commented, “It is with some pleasure that I welcome GBRacing on board this year. Their products are renowned for their quality at the highest levels of Motorcycle Sport all over the World. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank GBRacing for their support.”

You can find GBRacing here http://www.gbracing.eu/

There’s no need to change anything your browser will direct you to this new URL automatically if you are using the old address ianmackman/wordpress.com

Please keep coming back to check all the latest news and view my new merchandise which is currently being designed at mugs4u.com

Preparations for the 2012 season are well under way now as the picture of the ZX10 shows. The forks/shock are now out too. Note my health and safety technique of strapping the bike to my metal garage roof and slowly taking up the strain hoping that it doesn’t cave in on me!!! Please don’t do this at home!

The bike is now spread across the UK, engine in Nottingham, forks at Maxtons in Cheshire and the fuel tank is in Northern Ireland.

My rigorous winter fitness regime, LOL, continued last weekend with a little run out on the trials bike. I’ll update the blog soon.

Turning up at the track at 8.30 to mist and a very wet circuit after some heavy overnight rain. I sat out the morning, I haven’t got any spare wheels yet and the track was obviously going to dry out. I needed some dry track to test the bike properly. During the morning ted, my two year old son, spent 80% of his time riding his balance bike through an enormous puddle In the paddock. Quite impressively picking his feet up and rolling for 6 feet at a time without touching the floor. Just like his dad he managed to fall off right in be middle of the puddle too.

The first challenge of the day was getting through the noise test. Quiet the zx10 ain’t!!! Without any baffling the bike was clearly going to fail spectacularly. So we fitted a baffle in, a shake of the noise polices head and I was back to the van for more silencing. Tim Poole showed up just in time to pull some loft cladding from the lining of his van for the job. I wrapped the baffle and bolted it back in. We got through the test on the promise that we left this in all day, boo! The cladding didn’t last long, a trail of it followed me down the paddock for the first outing with bits firing out like a snow making machine!!

Finally the track was showing some sort of dry line in the afternoon. I went out on dry tyres, it wasnt really dry enough and still properly wet through Druids and old hall. Not much use for set up but I could tell that the longer wheelbase I was trying had improved things. Druids was especially wet on the exit. The rear tyre was squirming all over the place even without any throttle on, I reckon I could’ve got off and walked faster than I was getting the bike through there!

The second session was much better, care still had to be taken through old hall and Druids. No lap records were going to be set but 75% of the track was dry enough for some useful testing. With the wheelbase long the bike was still turning well, which was encouraging, over hilltop and various other crests the bike wasnt trying to turn over backwards as it had been during the previous test. I had wanted to test some different ride heights and stuff but there just wasnt enough time. A shame about the overnight rain really as the weather during the day was great for the time of year.
The front brake isnt the best I’ve ever used, giving loads of lever travel after 4 laps. I’d already bled through some top brake fluid which usually sorts the job out. No real benefit was made so I swapped the pads for some genuine Suzuki ones, which are the same. A noteable performance improvement but lever travel is still a bit of an issue, something else to be investigated over the winter. I changed the rear shock setting for the last session too which was an improvement again, slightly softer and more forgiving. The session went well, on the whole, with the track in it’s best condition of the day. The bike did spin up big time at, a still patchy damp, deers leap on the first lap fortunately the traction control or “the force” as it shall be known (become a jedi you will!) sorted it all out! A shame really that we ran out of time to try any serious mods but mostly a positive day at the office. Packing the van up at 4pm little ted gave james (my mechanic) a warning about drinking “dirty beer” tonight all sound advice my son!!

The bike feels pretty good and, to be honest, I’d race it tomorrow as it is. I think we are already in the ball park, geometry wise, and everytime I ride the bike it feels a bit more like my own, it’s well fast too!!. Bring on the TT!

The bike came with Maxton suspension, as I have used for the last two seasons. With some checks on spring rates etc in the week prior, I turned up at Oulton Park after working on Saturday morning. James, of Infront Motorcycles Chester, had already got the bike there and on tyre warmers so with some sag adjustments we were ready to go. I jumped on for my first session being every bit the professional that I am I promptly stalled the bike! Haha how impressive do I look? Note to self, sell the fancy “fold up” clutch lever and fit a standard one back on! Finally on my way I decided the best plan, with only three sessions available, was to make it have it from the off. The bike was superb, a bit of an animal to be honest. Having never ridden with traction control/anti wheelie before it took a bit of getting used to. It was immediately clear that the wheelbase was too short and gearing too low. I came in and softened the rear shock damping to try and calm things down. An improvement but more work was required. The first session went in a flash of wheelies and both me shutting the throttle, when the front lifted, and the bike doing the same causing some wedding tackle/fuel tank interference a couple of times over Hilltop!!

We changed the gearing and moved the wheel back 10 mm in the swingarm. The second session got underway. The bike was a clear improvement, all of the violence was taken away and I could start riding it the way that I wanted. On the second lap I arrived at Druids to see a bike on it’s side and it’s rider “searching for the pound coin” in the gravel. Session red flagged whilst things were cleaned up. As we got underway again I pushed on until Druids, tipping in and off the throttle the rear tyre lost grip and swayed out sideways. I grabbed the clutch and picked it up. Pulling it back down to avoid the grass the same thing happened again. I pulled it into line and skimmed the grass. There was no way I was pushing hard enough to provoke that!! I took a deep breath and headed straight back to the pits. I stopped at the end of pitlane to tell the Marshall that there must be oil down, probably from the bike that had caused the red flag. He looked at me as stunned as if I’d just said “there’s a zebra on the loose at Druids” with that his radio announced that someone else had binned it at Druids so the red flag came out again. I tried folks I really tried. Whilst waiting for the next session to start the track day organiser found me in the garage to pass his congratulations on from the marshals at Druids. Apparently they had never seen a save like mine!! Was it skill or just good luck I’ll leave you to make your own mind up.

No changes for the third session except some fresh brake fluid, brake fade seeming to be a small issue. I was well happy with the bike and really starting to find my feet with it. It sounds awesome, even on the overrun. The jury is still out on if the traction control will make me faster. Some more testing is required. I want to try a softer shock setting, longer wheelbase and a other sprocket set up for starters. With this in mind I’ve planned another track afternoon at Oulton Park this coming Wednesday. See you there? Hopefully without any loose zebras!

Ian

The final round of the season, it all finishes so quickly! Mallory isn’t one of my favourite circuits on the calendar (bring back the esses!). The stop/start nature of the track just doesn’t overly suit the way that I ride a bike. I travelled down on the friday night for the two day event. I had a healthy lead in the Superstock 1000 championship so Saturday for me was about securing the championship. I struggled with side grip from the rear tyre in the qualifying session to set myself 6th on the grid. Some changes to the bike for the first race and fingers crossed I lined up on the grid. An average start saw me battling for most of the race in 6th place. Passing into 4th by the chequered flag. I needed a slightly better finish really but struggling for rear grip during the latter stages of the race held me back. The result crowned me Superstock 1000 champion for 2011, a great relief to get it tied up with two races to go.

Morello Superstock 1000 Points

With my tyre tearing issues in mind and being still very much in contention for the GP1 (superbike) title also. I decided to swap from the Superstock class into GP1, this would enable me to use slick tyres for the two races on Sunday. I figured this would give me a better chance of a result. My two main competitors were both riding well (better than I was anyway!) so I needed all the help I could get. Some dry weather was the order of the day I lined up fourth on the grid for race one. Getting heavily boxed in on the start/finish straight, with the choice to either brake or hit the pit wall I elected for the former. This left me struggling in 6th place, championship chances not looking at their best.

I pushed on hard but kept getting the smell of hot water/coolant and noted the bike was running slightly hotter than usual. The rider in front of me had flicked some stones up with his knee from the inside of the fast first corner. A couple of slides later I decided that I must have a hole in the radiator or some form of leak. I pressed on and kept a close eye on the situation. Bringing it home in 5th place. My championship hopes all but extinguished. Back in the parc ferme a brief inspection of where the steam was coming from showed that a stone had broken the radiator guard and still managed to pierce the radiator. I was about ready to put the bike back in the van along with some choice words (sorry Mum) and go home! As is the nature of ThundersportGB paddock, the Knight racing team helped me out and bunged up the hole in the radiator between races.

A new rear tyre I sat on the grid thinking that things must go better this time. I wasn’t wrong, hole shotting the start I held the lead for the first few laps. The grip was so much better, even with no changes to the bike. I guess that more water than I thought must’ve been finding it’s way to the rear tyre in the first race. I finally felt like I could push the way I knew was possible. Mick Robertson passed me into Gerards, I was able to stick with his pace (which I’d not managed to do in any other race over the weekend!). Getting good drive out of Gerards I set up and passed on the brakes into Edwinas. Another pass into Gerards and Mick ran a bit wide. I was back up the inside. All this cost us a little bit of time allowing third place man Phil Crowe to pass us into Edwinas. We battled on and Phil got a small gap on the two of us. I again managed a pass into Edwinas but ran out of time to jump the gap to Phil. Crossing the line in second place in one of the best races of the season. The result saw me finish third in the GP1 championship. It would have been a good bonus to win but I was content having won the Superstock 1000 championship which I set out for at the start of the season.

Overall a fantastic season for all of us involved in our small team. Isle of Man TT privateers Champion, Anglesey Grand Champion and ThundersportGB Superstock 1000 Champion my best season yet. My biggest thanks go to Kemtile for their support, I literally wouldn’t be racing without them. Alongside them James of Infront motorcycles, Chester. Wife (Jo), Mum (Ann) and Son/comedy genius (Ted) are there every weekend smiles (them!) or frowns (me!) for support. The rest know who you are but I’ve listed you below anyway and I give a big thankyou to you all.

Preparation for next season (one more year Jo!) is already well underway. With, once again, support from Kemtile I have purchased a Kawasaki ZX10R in Superstock trim. Having ridden no other big bike than Suzuki it was a big decision to make. The new Kawasaki has proved it’s capability on both the roads and short circuits. It has impressive amounts of power and I’ve heard all good things about them. Suzuki were very non-commital about the performance of the new GSXR to be released and I was reluctanct to take a gamble on a new model. I can’t carry on racing forever so don’t want to waste any time! I want to go back to the TT to see if, with more performance, I can go faster!! Plans for a test afternoon this coming Saturday (29th oct) are taking place so hopefully I’ll get a run out before winter starts. This will give us some sort of direction for the close season (other than eating pies).

Once again folks, thanks for your support (if you’re reading this then you’re helping my race effort) and I’ll keep you informed as winter preparations take place.

With thanks to:

Kemtile
Infront Motorcycles (Chester)
RLR Motorsport
roadracingsupporters.com
Motul Oil
RST Leathers
Knox body armour
Daytona Boots
Quill Exhausts
Hel Performance
Holbeach Motorcycle Tyres
Bridgestone
Dunlop
Maxton suspension
Daniel Cross
Bob Beese
Howard Tipping
John Tipping
Brian Woolgar
Patrons of the Dog and Ladder (yes really)
David Jones/Clwyd Heating Racing (sorry again for breaking the Triumph)
A&S Transport (chester)
John Cox

Some tyre ripping issues, so fingers crossed for tomorrow for the GP1 championship.