Budget racing gone mad!!

[andrewsmith]

It looks like the cheque book racing has eventually hit the minitwins.

Whats everyones views on it?
Does it mean the last preserve of the budget racer is the CB500's

Hi Andy,

time for me to get up on my soap box!!

As far as i'm concerned Minitwins is finished!!

I have a sneaking suspicion that many road racers want to keep it a "closed shop" by simply making it too expensive for your average working class bloke to partake, and right now i'm thinking-you can keep it!!

Bullseye is now officially up for sale and i'm intending to give CB500s a go!

I cant stop thinking about NEMCRC at the AGM 2 weeks ago-there was only 2 of us in the whole club who wanted to keep minitwins alive!! Thats the only supposedly "cheap" class at our club dead!

The ACU have already recognised that there aren't enough racers progressing up to National level-they've changed the criteria for it!
Minitwins was a perfect way for people to compete on a level playing field and progress to National level!!

So now it's bring on the Supertwins and start racing cheque books!!

Well I certainly dont intend racing in the same class where blokes have spent ex number of pounds on engine tuning and i'm running a standard bike-I might as well go to the pub and pee my money up against the wall!!

Have a nice day!!

TC252

[andrewsmith]

Tony

I personally don't blame you, callum or any of the others that call it quits now. 2 out of a club of about 150 to keep a budget class is a poor show.

It does seem that the closed shop is happening. Is this the case now in name at Melville and Knockhill also?
For the record this is only the Northern M/C clubs at present (with Auto66 already running MGP/ Irish Supertwin rules because of Oliver's Mount), Derby Phoenix run Thunderbikes at present

To anyone reading this thread that doesn't know the costs:

You can build a fast competitive Minitwin for around £2k (based on the bike being <£1k) and a season (fuel, tyres, entrance fees, fuel to track etc... Minus pit crews beer supply ) is about £2.5k doing 8-10 meets

A competitive supertwin for the costs around £12- 15k to build (based on £3-5k for the bike) and around £5 to 7k a season (new tyres every meeting, if not every race and quite a bit of 97/99 Ron unleaded).


Everytime I've seen the Supertwin lads they've either wiped the floor (Farquhar and Co) with everyone or have been just ahead of a MT (Oliver's Mount is a good example)

*Soapbox away for Christmas*

Anyways TC put a removable road loom on bullseye and keep it.

I can see why the clubs have done it (from a hypothetical stand point). If a class is too difficult for a club to police effectively then by removing the need to police it, they have an easier life.

I can't say the move to supertwins would bother me. For two reasons

1) I love tinkering with the bike so being able to do more tinkering within the rules would be great for me. I'd have loved to have fitted a 180 rear wheel conversion, a really nice set of front forks, and a host of other items to my bike.

2) I was there for the racing and not there to win. Id didn't matter what the guys at the front were doing (or had done to their bikes, whether legal or not) becasue I knew I'd be able to find someone (usually several) to have a good tussle with. The craic in the pits was just as important as any win was.

and I actualy got a lot of satisfaction knowing I'd beaten someone that (allegedly) had a 750 big bore on his bike. with my completely std bike.

And if I were to have to choose a new category to race in if the MT's died, I'd buy a bike that allowed me to compete in a race with those that were the best laugh. Like the two guys in the pre injection series with Melville.

I'm 42 now and weigh more than your average baby elephant and don't take myself too seriously. I'm never going to be the next Rossi and couldn't care one jot. However, I do care that i'm going to get a bit of racing and I'd enter any class that would allow me to get it. Even a standard Minitwin in the Open class if thats what it took.

C

[flymo]

yeah, been there done that on an old FZR400 with stock engine spec. I was competing against riders who had spent £1500 on a crank shaft, I didnt spend that on my entire bike. Simply no contest when your competitor has 15 mph on you down the straights.

My local club Wirral 100 has ignored the supertwin thing and retained the minitwin spec remembering the reason that we introduced it, budget racing. They get the constant moaning about the guy next door with an illegal engine mod, like every other class, but they leave it to the class regulars to maintain the spirit of the minitwin spec.

Wanna race proper minitwin regs? Get yourself down to Wirral 100 race club using Oulton Park and Anglesey, a well run club on fantastic circuits.

Thundersport are running MiniTwin, SuperTwin and F400 under different classes (but sharing the same grid).

It's a shame as a couple of years ago it was the class on the up, with good grids and even better racing. The North east and Melville clubs just don't have the resources to have a dedicated minitwin "police" so maybe this was always going to be the end result when people started asking for enforcement of the rules. The clubs have just changed the rules.
It leaves me wondering what was so broken about it that needed fixing? All those cheats?
I think I'll still rock up to the first Melville meeting and have a go. If I'm left for dead by a load of fire breathing supertwins then I'll call it a day but I can't see that. It's more likely to be an empty grid in which case I'll call it a day as well but most likely is that it'll be much the same. Some sv650's and 400's having a race. The good riders at the front, the not so good ones at the back.
Just as an aside, has anybody had a look at the supertwin lap times vs minitwins for bemsee meetings?

Posted twice for some reason

looks like it will be a good time to pick up some nice race bikes to convert back to road bikes, shame tho that this seems to be a fizzling out...

15k for a supertwin, u cud buy farquhars for £8.5k a couple of weeks ago and he won everything with that bad boy. The rule change will hardly make any differance with nemcrc/melville as they werent enforced in the first place, i doubt there was more than a couple illegal bikes anyway. as gordon says if you look at the mtwins/supertwins times theres a knats **** in it anyway. I think a well ridden minitwin will still be very competitive and (no offence tc) a national license still easily achievable on a minitwin up against the supertwins.