Cadwell Park report & lots of photos

[Guzzirider]

Mal and I rode over to Cadwell Park on Saturday on our V11s along some very pleasant sunny Lincolnshire lanes. The purpose of our visit was to watch and support Gyles Fairclough who was racing his largely standard black Daytona RS in the Thunderbikes class in 2 races on Saturday, and another 2 on Sunday. Plan was then to stay over on Monday and join in a Hottrax track day along with a few other Guzzis.

 

If you don't know Cadwell Park I'll describe it- it is the true spiritual home of grass roots bike racing in England- long, hilly, twisty and very technical- a real challenge for any rider and a lot of fun.

 

We missed the first race but heard that Gyles had come 9th, with about 20 riders behind him. It was a similar result in race 2, and we enjoyed watching him race his heart out on his fat Guzzi against bikes that had similar power but weighed 60 kgs less. He struggled a bit more in race 2 due to a bike that was pinking like a bastard due to some bad fuel. While draining the fuel, he found a bumble bee in his tank (Mal joked this was the Daytona factory "B" kit).

 

Gyles is sponsored by the Wylam micro brewery in Northumbria and always has 60 odd litres of free wheat beer on his van, so we all got a bit pissed on Saturday night, and paid the price on Sunday morning with bad hangovers.

 

On Sunday, he was really flying, up as far as 7th during one race, finishing 9th again. To put his efforts in perspective, Phil Read Jr who was racing in the same class came 3rd on a Laverda 750 which had £80,000 spent on it. Gyles is on a standard Daytona.

 

On Sunday night we were joined by Robin (MGS01), Alan (1100 Sport Corsa) and Garth (BMW K75- his Sport Carb was out of action). Gyles's buddy and team mate Chris who had been with us all weekend was on his Sport Carb. We had a nice walk around the circuit under the bright starry sky and enjoyed watching some spectacular meteorite showers. With most of us slightly nervous, Alan kindly cheered us up with tales of horrific road accidents and people burning to death just before we headed off to our tents to sleep!

 

Up bright and early Monday morning, pleased not to be at work and in the sunshine, we joined by Bruce and his family. He had brought with him the championship winning 1288cc Raceco Daytona. What a beautiful beast! He had bought it from a guy in Denmark, and as an engineer by trade, restored it back to its original form, with the exception of detuning to 130rwbhp, so the compression was low enough to use a starter motor.

 

Robin and I were in the academy, hopefully to get some professional track tuition, and the rest of the guys were all in the same track day group. The academy was a total mess- too many riders on track, with too many varying abilities- a total shambles and I found it totally dangerous with wobbling riders 4 abreast taking funny lines while some fast guys were burning past them. After 3 sessions I swapped to the regular track day so I could ride with the other guys. The organisers apologised, and agreed it was a bit of a mess out there.

 

After lunch, I went out with the other Guzzis, following Gyles on the borrowed MGS01 (very generous of Robin!) for about a lap and half until he chose to shoot off into the distance. I had the pleasure of an open and largely empty track, and was able to enjoy myself much more. During one lap I could hear and sense a really noisy powerful bike up my chuff- in fact I could sense pure evil behind me. Sure enough when I got onto a straight the Raceco Daytona blasted past me like I was standing still- what an awesome machine- the best racing Guzzi of modern times and I now have serious Daytona envy! My Rosso Corsa was very well behaved though- and was extremely stable and steered much better than the Sport Corsa I used to own and had taken around Cadwell on a couple of previous occasions.

 

Being quite tired, and wanting to ride home in one piece, I sat out the last 2 sessions and enjoyed watching the Guzzis thunder around the track, and I felt very priviledged to be there with so many nice and special Guzzis being thrashed. It was great to see Gyles and Bruce lap most of the other riders, most of whom were on fast Jap bikes or Dukes and Aprilias.

 

Poor old Chris had a fall when his bike cut out on a hairpin due to a blown fuse- luckily not too much damage done, and Gyles let him ride his race bike in the last session. Alan's Sport Corsa developed a clutch problem so Gyles lent him his spare red Daytona- everyone was being very generous with each other. I had politely declined an earlier offer to ride his race bike in case I threw it down the road.

 

All in all, Mal and I enjoyed a fantastic weekend, mainly great weather, watching bikes racing, free beer and riding on the track with some very special Guzzis- bella!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Paul Minnaert]

Thanks looks like had great days there. Nice pictures

[Guest drknow]

Thanks looks like had great days there. Nice pictures

 

Very nice pics, thanks for sharing.

 

dk

[jihem]

brilliant ! I actually nearly came too with the Zeebrugge-Hull ferry but had to cancel the trip :-(

the circuit looks even better than i imagined...

[Guzzirider]

I am sure we will organise something similar again- and it would be great to have some European friends along with us.

 

Guy

[Baldini]

Guy, sorry I couldn't make it, wish I'd been there, sounds great. KB

[GuzzBun]

What a blast! I only managed the Track Day, but got to experience my MGS in its natural environment at last - my first track day, but definitely not my last! Perfect weather, excellent company and continuous pleasure. For me, the best bit was watching Gyles ride my MGS the way it should be ridden. I'll keep practising - I can only hope!!!

 

No prizes for identifying which is Gyles!!!

 

[belfastguzzi]

Brilliant

 

Good pics of very nice bikes

 

[jihem]

For me, the best bit was watching Gyles ride my MGS the way it should be ridden.

 

 

What did he think of the MGS 01 ?

 

(i'm sure he liked it, but did he get specific into why and in conparison to his usual machinery ?)

[GuzzBun]

What did he think of the MGS 01 ?

 

(i'm sure he liked it, but did he get specific into why and in conparison to his usual machinery ?)

 

It was a dry, warm day, and the MGS had standard road tyres fitted. When I'd done my sessions the tyres were still showing a half-inch chicken strip (it was my first ever time on the track!), but when Gyles had finished there was no chicken strip, and the outer edges of the tyres were very sticky and starting to craze and bobble. He said that the tyres were limiting him as they were starting to let go - he reported at least one power slide - and he was not wanting to take them beyond their performance limit for obvious reasons! He also said that the bike just didn't stop pulling - the fastest he saw on the speedo was 150 mph, and it was still pulling like a train! I had it dyno-d last week and it showed 122bhp at the wheel at 8000rpm, and somewhere over 85ftlbs in a pretty straight line from about 4500rpm to 7250rpm - the dyno man was impressed! Book weight dry is about 190kg, so the power/weight ratio is quite good for an air-cooled shaft-drive twin.

 

Perhaps unfair to compare Gyles on the MGS against the other riders who didn't have racing experience, but to my untrained eye, he was leaving everything behind - and the sound as he accelerated out of the 90 degree bend into the long back straight was spine-tinglinly good.

 

All the above is my understanding - I'll ask Gyles for his written impressions and post them when I get them.