Mini Twin Race Bike Pace

Pretty good apart from a high side at oulton last month, just bruises and minor damage to bike. Sorted with ebay bits for £40! . I got my acu license and joined preston and district club recently. Still got the old gsxr. Hoping to make my first race in october when I get back from my hols in pre injection class. Will miss sept meet as I dont get back till night before. I am on same bike prep method as you. Bog standard apart from can and second hand supercorsas. Got yorkie chris to service rear shock, stripped and rebuilt forks and brakes with decent pads myself and away you go. It feels alright to my skill levels to me! Checkout the pics on 'easytrack cadwell' thread in trackday section that I did with some fellow orgers! It was talking to the likes of yourself and other lads like Berlin doing it on a budget that made me want to have a go.
How are your injuries coming on? You must have a screw loose to even get in one of them things!

Hello mate,
i'm glad to see you're going down the budget racing line!!
The best thing about that is even if you get thrashed you just think about the money and get a wry smile!!
I've been thinking about giving the CB500 racing a try-that is proper budget racing-and the guy's go like stink!!
My injuries are healing nice and steady-back to work full time now boo hoo!!
I'll probably do a bit of work on Bullseye over the winter and try a couple of track days early next season and see how it feels in my head!
If you ever get the chance of a go on a sidecar-our club have experience rides over lunchtimes-you must try it-it's just a totally different dimension!!
I'm getting excited now-cos i'm off to t' Island to watch the Manx GP practice week-got my old beemer on the road and gonna give the mountain course a good looking at-surely racing there has got to be something to do before you snuff it!!

Keep the power on!!

TC

as said above, track time will make you faster.

Im running with BEMSEE novices this year on an r6.

Priori to racing, I was lapping brands inday at 1.03. Got down to 59 seconds at our first meeting there. 5 meetings later, back at brands indy and my times were down to 53 seconds. Thats without training or anything changed on the bike..... just time on the bike and a little confidence.

So, other than the "essesntials" would concentrate on track time / tution to make you faster...

[andrewsmith]

Originally Posted by TC252

Hello mate,
i'm glad to see you're going down the budget racing line!!
The best thing about that is even if you get thrashed you just think about the money and get a wry smile!!
I've been thinking about giving the CB500 racing a try-that is proper budget racing-and the guy's go like stink!!
My injuries are healing nice and steady-back to work full time now boo hoo!!
I'll probably do a bit of work on Bullseye over the winter and try a couple of track days early next season and see how it feels in my head!
If you ever get the chance of a go on a sidecar-our club have experience rides over lunchtimes-you must try it-it's just a totally different dimension!!
I'm getting excited now-cos i'm off to t' Island to watch the Manx GP practice week-got my old beemer on the road and gonna give the mountain course a good looking at-surely racing there has got to be something to do before you snuff it!!

Keep the power on!!

TC

Glad to here your on the mend mate!
You know where I am if ur needing a hand
Tony please don't remind me about those rides Gordon Shand scared me witless on his manx outfit.

Speak to Rai86 on here as she does a bit of CB500 nutter racing

Cheers for the comments. I'll be booking a couple more days this summer and have found a candidate for giving me some pointers. He's raced for years so hopefully he'll have the knowledge.

What sort of budget (bare minimum and realistic?) do you need for a season of Minitwins at BEMSEE or Gloucester? I assume it's far more than you think at the beginning of the year while your hoping to stay on the bike the whole time!

Budget depends alot on what club/circuits you use plus travelling costs dont forget. Preston and district is cheapest I found and fairly easy for me to get to. However they only tend to use three sisters which is good fun but hardly cadwell! A 2 race entry is £75 + £10 per extra class + £20 transponder hire. So you are over £100 before you even put petrol in your bike.
Tony, CB500 racing? A gentle way back into the groove? What they lack in power they make up for by elbowing each other to make a pass dont they? lol

[andrewsmith]

Originally Posted by nomski

Cheers for the comments. I'll be booking a couple more days this summer and have found a candidate for giving me some pointers. He's raced for years so hopefully he'll have the knowledge.

What sort of budget (bare minimum and realistic?) do you need for a season of Minitwins at BEMSEE or Gloucester? I assume it's far more than you think at the beginning of the year while your hoping to stay on the bike the whole time!

Doing 10 meets (entry, transponder, scrubs and fuel) is around £3k a season

Bike, can be done for about £700-£1,000 (depends on how cheap you can get a bike) and thats just making it ACU compliant

Originally Posted by nomski

Cheers for the comments. Totally agree! The reason I wanted to know was to get an idea how far off the pace I would be on a Minitwin grid. It's difficult to gauge because my bike is probably not as quick as a race prepped one.

I was at Cadwell last night with my GoPro and was doing 1:57's and it feels like it would go miles faster just by raising the rear sets as my pegs spend half the lap on the ground. I am far more concerned with learning to ride properly than pimping out my bike at the moment and the less I spend on the bike the more I can spend on riding it! One crucial edit though is that I'm riding on Dunlop Qualifiers which are a bit stickier than standard which must be helping a fair bit!

Does anyone know how much quicker a race bike would be per lap? I'm probably down almost 10bhp for starters.

At the moment I hold the lap record for the MRO and Bemsee minitwin class at Cadwell of 1.37.9 set in April this year breaking Chris Northovers 2007 record by 0.6 secs. The spec of the bike (for sale on this forum) is about as high you can get within the minitwin regs. Tyres were Pirelli Diablo supercorsa's SC1 front/SC 2 rear - Rear was new for the race. Hot pressures were 31/29. gearing was 14:44. Weather dry and sunny. Rear sag was set at 10mm, Front 25mm. Brakes have stock discs and are crap hot with PF pads well bedded in. Fuel load was as low as possible. Engine was fresh producing bang on 72 HP. Fairings were SDC units with stock screen. Gearbox has racing detent star and spring fitted from JHS.
Record went in last race of the weekend having won 1st, then crashed in 2nd, up to 6th in 3rd race then made 3rd place in last race. Lap record was broken twice in this 5 lap race. Firstly on lap 4 by 0.01 sec chasing the two leaders. Last lap was a last ditch effort to win but failed by 0.4 secs.

So if you add all of this together - high spec bike, experienced rider in 5th season, good conditions and special race circumstances - you have the difference that amounts to 20 seconds between you and me at the moment (with due respect). If i were to apportion the gain between the bike and rider i would say its about 75% rider and 25% bike. Put onto your stock bike I could screw the **** off it as much as possible but it would be significantly down on the front of the pack by around 4 - 6 secs a lap. The other factor is confidence - I wouldnt feel comfortable on your bike as mine is set up to suit me and my riding style.

Anyway, hope this adds some perspective for you.

Sam Cox

lol , blantant advert for his bike there !! lol only kidding mate.

Sams point is, I think this..... or at leats what Ive seen of yself.

The rider is more imprtant than the bike unless your running at the front.

For example, with a bit more confidence on my bike, I managed to knock 7 seconds off my lap time, yet I bought the bike from a guy who was still 3 seconds quicker round brands indy than me. SO the bike has it, its me that needs developing..... probably up until a certain level, the bike will be better than you, only when you rech the limits of the bike will you really need to then spend money on it.


ps - sam - might have a look at your bike, thinking of minitwins next yera... fancy swapping wanna r6 ?

Thanks a lot, that's exactly the info I was after. I'll see what I can do for getting involved a bit next season. I'm still far more concerned about my riding to start trying to spend wads of cash on my bike. I think the forks could do with the thick oil, harder springs combo and I definitely need to raise the rear pegs but other than that I'm just going to hammer the riding tech. I think I lose most time on entry speed and braking, i.e. start braking far to early steer in to gently at to slow a speed and then accelerate all the way through the bend carrying good speed through and getting good drive out. Annoying but the higher speed turn in is far more intimidating than once you are in the corner scraping everything on the ground.