A half way through the year without racing yet update.

A welcome care package from a sponsor to keep us busy

It has been a while since our last update so we thought it was definitely catch up time.

In a first for the team; we are half way through the year and nobody has fallen off their bike yet. Not being able to race may have something to do with this.

All of us both serving and non serving haven’t really stopped working through this pandemic. Something which we are very fortunate to be able to say. We have however had a bit of extra time in the shed as we haven’t been racing or going on mind-numbing trips to Ikea etc.

As things are relaxing and racing has got started again, you might be wondering why we have remained quiet? Well rules stand for the team members still serving, the details of which don’t matter, but we are basically not posting anything on social media about racing. Our ex-serving members have decided to also “keep the noise down” online too. So if you have seen anyone who looks a lot like us out there, we couldn’t possibly say. On the plus side, further normality is only round the corner we hope.

#14 Green

Whilst everyone else appears to have extra spare time,I did not! Work carried on at the regular pace. I don’t have a winter build season, I never stop building and adding to the fleet of blue in the garage. Whilst busy preparing a new bike for this season, the pressure was taken off with GP Originals sadly announcing that the season was cancelled due to losing the grid spaces with the clubs they were scheduled to support. I was due to ride a TZ350. The bike is almost finished; wive Dave Bond is helping weld the exhausts, fit the powerjets to the carbs and then just a few little tweaks and we are about done. I will then have it on my dyno for a shake down soon regardless.

With the CRMC calendar back on; my focus turned to the sponsored ride in the form of a 4 stroke… Still cannot believe I’m doing it! A Brightman 350 Aermacchi.

A weekend run out for the bikes that some of you might have heard of featured my usual steed: the RD250E and the Aermacchi. The RD performed well,however the poor Aermacchi suffered all weekend. This turned out to be an ignition fault that only manifested itself after the bike was fully warm. A new ignition is on the way and hopefully it will be sorted for the next outing.

#51 Kirkby

Whilst it was great to see racing return to some sort of normality unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to Cadwell Park. I’m hoping to have a ride out before the end of the season though, as a shake down for 2021, but time will tell. In the meantime the Yamaha TZ350G is sat on the bench ready to go whilst the Honda VFR750 Superstocker is almost there although it is taking quite a bit longer to finish than I had hoped. In anticipation of the first meeting of 2021, I’m attempting to keep my fitness and focus up with the recent purchase of a Beta 200 trials bike which I’m really looking forward to challenging myself with.

#74 Heggs

Sometimes I wonder if I am happier in a shed than I am on a bike. I certainly enjoy racing in hindsight and look forward to it but being in the shed is far less stressful on the day. Well it usually is anyway.

As Winters off season rolled ever deeper into summer thanks to COVID19, I was getting plenty of shed time. The Yamaha TZ/RD250 remained sorted and ready to go just needing another run up to make sure it hadn’t got lazy. The Honda VFR750 RC24 was also sitting pretty after its suspension mods. The worst issue I had was the ignition switch stopping working from under use! I did some work towards some front brake mods and designed a 3d printed camera mount but otherwise this bike was ready to go for the most part, something else was grabbing my attention anyway.

I have mentioned the Honda CBR400RR-L NC29 before and anyone following will know I have been quite busy with that build of late. The engine has been out and apart. A trip to GFracing saw me empty my wallet in exchange for some snazzy race bit too. It is starting to come together now and will hopefully be in some semblance of complete for the end of the year, for a bit of a shake down which will help me decide on where to go next with it.

Of course that is how I should be leaving it but I now have an RD engine to rebuild after its number 2 piston let go. I’m still trying to figure out

0degree crank conversion

how but I am settling on a too fast down shift till I find anything that tells me otherwise. Whatever the reason, the engine has been ripped out and stripped ready for a deep clean and rebuild.

I got Grampian motors to do the crank rebuild for me as usual. They are well set up for tasks like this and are trusted by the whole team. They got two cranks back to me after just 4 days of me shipping them out, most of that time was with a courier, how good is that?!?

#157 Woodward

After racing motorcycles for nearly 30 years you would have thought that I would have learnt by now, but I haven't. Any sane person would think that having a Honda MT125, Yamaha RD250, Yamaha TZ/RD400, Kawasaki ZXR400, 2 racing Pit Bikes, a pit scooter, a track Honda VFR750 and a road VFR750, would be more than enough, especially with my teenage son wanting to race everything, everywhere. So instead of refining what I had and concentrating on my new post RAF businesses. I ended up buying a Honda VFR750NC24 and a VFR400NC21. I blame the NC21 on Dave Williams as he spent all last season whispering in my ear how good a water-cooled 400 would be in the Production Class, as for the 750, I just followed the crowd.

Unfortunately my new start-up business took a lot more time than I had hoped so the COVID-19 delay in racing actually gave me a chance to catch up. When restrictions started to lift I took both VFRs for an evening session at Cadwell Park. In the cold, horizontal rain, both bikes refused to start despite both running a few hours earlier as they were put in the van, (swear box fully utilised). The issues were sorted and I returned a few weeks later for final shakedown runs before the first meeting of the year. The 750 seemed OK with just a few refinement issues, whereas the 400 was very ill. It would start and run fine on the stand but as soon as put under load, it was gutless, only being able to pull the first 3 gears, I changed various things but no difference. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, I couldn't get it on the dyno for any fault diagnosis so with only a week to go before the bikes first outing I changed everything I could, carburettors, electrical system, cam sensor, I even dropped the engine out and changed the blowing rear exhaust and collector.

Once done I gave the MT125 a check over (Wednesday) as it had also had a shake down run out, only to find a huge crack in the front downtube. If I stripped the frame down John Walton offered to repair it in his mobile workshop in the paddock, but there was no way it was going to be ready for Saturday morning. I then decided to take my RD250 engine out of its own cracked frame and put into the TZ chassis of the RD400, which still hasn't recovered from a failed barrel last year, (If anybody has any RD400 barrels knocking about please feel free to drop me a line). With the VFR400 an unknown quantity, I made the painful decision to withdraw my entry and let my son Joe ride the VFR400 and RD250 so that I was free to spend time on the VFR if needed.

So, in short, even with a season starting 4 months late, I still wasn't quite ready, as I am sure Gav will comment on.

If you want to stay up to speed with the ups and downs of the team you could do worse than to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

For our longer reads, you are already in the right place. THis is where we post our race reviews and other articles on Blogger.

If you want some nail biting viewing, we also have a YouTube channel. So far it is a list of videos gleaned from our various members and other racing disciplines in the RAFMSA but expect some original content soon.

The Classic Racing Motorcycle Club (CRMC) offer live timing and have race results going back years so if you can’t make it to come watch the action you can still stay up to date.

All serving RAF team members race under the banner of the Royal Air Force Motorsports Association (RAFMSA) or as associates for our Veterans. If you are serving and wish to get involved with motorsports you can find all the contact details you will need on the RAFMSA website or get in contact directly with us.

Finally special thanks go to the companies who continue to support us:

Royal Air Force Motorsports Association, Royal Air Force Central Fund,

EBC brakes UK, NGK spark plugs UK, Stahlwille UK, Classic Racing Green,

R-Tech Welding, Ragged edge racing, Talon Engineering, Forcefield body armour,

MCA Leicester, Spencer Racing, Tony Salt Tyres, Witham group Motul, PJMphotography, Speedsnap