MSV Trackday Trophy (on a minitwin) a racer is born.

Thought I'd write up my experiences of starting racing from the very beginning. It may even help others wanting to do the same, hope you enjoy it. If not, sorry for wasting your time!

Please spare me a few paragraphs to set the scene. I’m 27, male and –just like you - have white blood cells, red blood cells and hydrocarbons running through my veins. Remember Playmobil? I do. The green motocross bike that was part of our collection at the tender age of five was, as far as I was concerned, a full works Team Green Kawasaki, complete with “bwarp bwarp” noises and “ring ding ding” tick over. We were well ahead of the curve: doing backflips were standard fare in my bedroom in the late 80’s!

Fast forward through hundreds of matchbox cars, magazines, R/C cars, going to the touring cars with my brother and dad, hours and hours of pawing over spec sheets, posters and photos; the smell of strained rubber and un-burnt fuel that never gets old and here we are in 2012: it’s finally time to get a slice of the motorsport pie for myself.

In February last year I passed my motorbike licence and bought myself a 1999 Suzuki SV650s and, two months later took it to Cadwell Park for my first track day. It was an evening session for the bargain prince of £45 with No Limits. I knew it would be good but as I pulled onto the track for my first sighting laps, the sensation of a life building up to one moment was overwhelming: I felt like I was finally home. The four days on track over the rest of the summer only intensified the desire to get racing, it was time to get this done!
Now there is one major hurdle to overcome with this racing lark and that, of course, is the cost.

Fancy mixing it with on the MotoGP grid? You’ll need to rent a bike – you can’t buy a Honda, Yamaha or Honda prototype, it has to go back to the factory at the end of the season, but you’ll still need to find a cool £1.2m to get the thing in your garage for a few months! Even a competitive Superbike can run into six figures. Yes, that’s the top end, but a set of tyres for club racing are around £300 a pair and if you crash your bike you’re in for all kinds of financial trauma. Bikes are skilled in transforming themselves in to confetti after deciding to do some celebratory cartwheels in the middle of what started as an innocuous low-side. Five-a-side football, it ain’t.

So on a budget it is then, first up I needed a class that is seriously low fat and a bike to ride in it, and I’ve landed on the Minitwins. Incredibly tight regulations mean that you can’t spend a great deal prepping the bike as there is not much you can actually do to them and they are reasonably cheap to buy in the first place. In no time I was on eBay trying to find a cheap and cheerful bike and lucked in on a £1100 fully race-ready 1999 SV650s.
That was last year. The 2011 season ended, the rain, snow and ice arrived and the bike lay dormant over the winter: no ACU licence, not much money and fading memories of those laps on track led me to lose faith in whether I was really going to commit to going racing.

March arrived and it was my brother’s 30th birthday, he’d just passed his bike test so what better way to celebrate than with a trackday at Cadwell park? The garden-bound, full-of-knackered-fuel SV race bike fired up first time and, after a little prep, we did the obligatory early start in the first real sun of 2012 and had a fantastic day on track.

I was weak ok? I’d just been on an amazing trackday, I had just been told by a guy who was in an advanced state of cancer to not wait for anything and to max out everything as much as I could. Somehow in my delirious state this all ganged up on me and I registered on the MSV website for the Bike Trackday Trophy for the princely sum of £50. Did I stop there? Oh no! Next up was an MSV trackday complete with ACU licence test and training at a rather heady £119 for the day and another £90 for test and training.

Now, where did I put all that spare talent I had kicking around?

Next write up will follow soon with details of the trackday, licence and prepping me and the bike for the big day!

[_Stretchie_]

Cool, this has all the makings of a great thread..

DO NOT LET US DOWN

; )

No pressure then!

Go for it mate, enjoy every minute. I've a mate whose just started in mini twins this season. It's loads of hard work, but he's loving every minute of it.

Good luck!

hi,are you doing sundays race or all weekend i will be there sunday

Originally Posted by maz

hi,are you doing sundays race or all weekend i will be there sunday

Sunday as in racing or sunday as in watching?

racing with a wet suit on looking at the weather

Yep been in the garage tonight trying to find a place to fit the aqualung and modify the the rearsets for flippers

Minitwins rock. You try to find someone who has ridden one that didn't love it. Welcome aboard matey.