The Biker Place

WOW, how quickly the past two and a half weeks have gone, it seems only yesterday that we were boarding the ferry at Heysham on route to the Isle of Man. We have now arrived home after David and Clwyd Heating Racing’s first Isle of Mann TT and can start thinking about how the meeting went.
At first David’s progress and lap times look very credible, but it is not until you look in greater detail that you realise how impressive they really are. David is the youngest rider at this year’s Isle of Man TT, the only rider on a Triumph 675 and was riding on untried and untested Michelin tyres. Even with these barriers David managed a best lap speed of 113.64mph on the final day of practice.
David’s two races did not go so smoothly, a low start number meant he came up across several waved yellow flags and some nasty crashes in both races. In the first race David made a steady start, passing several riders on track and on the time sheets. The race was going well, but unfortunately due to an incident on track David had to slow down dramatically. Despite this David finished the race in 41st place and took home his first finishers medal, just missing out on a bronze replica.
After consulting some more experienced riders, we sought to improve David’s bike setup for race two. Straight away it was clear David’s suspension was more suited to the race track rather than the Isle of Man. Unfortunately there is no practice between races, so any changes would be a gamble. David started the second race with fewer nerves than race one, but after lap 1 it was obvious the suspension changes had not improved the bike. David came in for his pit stop and his mechanic John had to make some quick adjustments to make David more comfortable on the bike. The slight changes worked and David began to claw back some positions and improve his times, once again incidents on track caused David to slow and he finished in a respectable 45th place, picking up another finishers medal.
To summarise, David has had a brilliant 2 weeks in the Isle of Man and is already thinking about his visit next year, hopefully we will have a 1000cc machine by then. The team were very impressed with David’s progress and fastest times; the highlight of the week was David receiving the Joe Craig Trophy for the most impressive British bike which can be seen in the photo.
Once again, a big thank you to all our sponsors, all the people who helped at the Isle of Man and thebikerplace.com.

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