Lozzo

Tell me about it, I've been helping to build race bikes for 25 years, and it always ends up costing more than expected.

Your original quote was:

"Race powerbikes..ok take one GSXR1000 and spend equally as much on it..then go and race it in Powerbikes. "

My point was you don't need to spend as much as the bike cost again to be competetive. In my opinion, the 3 grand Danny spent on a race conversion at Powerbike level is cheap - at Superstock level there's not a lot more you can spend money on. If someone racing in Powerbikes wants to spend another couple of grand on engine tuning then to be perfectly honest, I think they're mad.

Were you at Brands in March when Tim Bourne took a virtually standard GSXR1000 K7 out in Forza Xtreme? He showed you don't even need to spend money on suspension, exhausts, rearsets and race seat units. Stick a K6 race fairing and a set of Metzeler Racetecs on, remove the rear lights and indicators and go racing...and win.

It's all very well spending huge amounts of money on race bikes, but that doesn't always mean you'll be up there with the fast boys (or girls in your case). A lot of it is down to how well your thousands of pounds worth of gear is set up, and how well you can utilise it to your best advantage. Someone with good riding ability and a tactical brain can win on something that is pretty much as it rolled off the showroom floor.

You got me there, sorry. I was referring to the bike he ran last year and earlier this year, not the '07 model he's taken to British Superstocks. When I last spoke to Steve he was saying that his '07 bike is down on power and 10kg heavier than his last one.