MotoE: Round 2, Anglesey circuit.

I watched bemused from the banking as rain was forced down the back of of my navy cagoule by a bracing wind... So this is, 'camping'...My Mum was sitting where the orange and floral blue frame tent used to be with blood pouring from and open wound on her finger and Dad was hanging in the air from the corner of the same frame tent as it whipped and thrashed him about in the wind like terrier with a rabbit...It sounded different when they explained it to me when the family holiday was explained. Before we set off in our Cortina Estate with the hot black vinyl seats Anglesey sounded to me, the seven year old me at least, like a paradise of sand and sea, rubber dingies and barnstormer kites....

Anglesey hasn't changed very much...not as much as I 'd expected it to in 35 years but its closer to that paradise now..Because now it has a race track...perched on a hill in that bracing wind watching the sea as it taunts it from the beaches below...It's not the wind blown desolation you'd expect in that location either, it nice, really nice ...a smooth tarmac paddock, pit garages, club and national layout's, 'facilities' and camping...but this time, anchored to that Welsh rock with sandbags and water weights, this time, its a ''team name adorned' race awning...not a '70s frame tent.. :)

It's time to go racing again;

Alex, 'the Boss' of Darvill racing had arrived during the day on Friday and set the team awning up next to our partners for this MotoE series, 'Zongshen racing' from China. We're using their 'number three' satellite bike and as such enjoy their extremely efficient services in prepping and making changes to the bike. (if not the performance of the factory bikes)...The weather was perfect and the North Glos' club welcomed us into their midst with enthusiasm...The format for this weekend was more familiar than the Nurburgring set-up; A morning warm-up had me as fastest Chinese bike followed by an afternoon qualifying session. which ended with me as second fastest Chinese bike, 4th overall as the Number 1 bike of Chun Kay Kwok (real name!) found 4 seconds after morning warm up to take 3rd spot, Chris Purdie on the Siaetta Agni with the inimitable Daley 'Daisy' Matheson taking top honours, as he would all weekend on the University of Nottingham's high powered monster.

I'd asked for changes before qualifying that improved my lap times, they were pretty conservative so for the first race on Sunday I asked for even lower gearing and another click of rebound damping to clam the slightly wallowy feel in the middle of the long corners. I didn't want to overdo the suspension changes as the soft rear Continental slick was starting to wear out and it may have been covering an issue I couldn't feel as the grip reduced..I had to make it last the weekend...Which unfortunately means we're at a disadvantage to those on an 'unlimited' tyre contract from Michelin. High corner speeds and worn out tyres can be a recipe for disaster but I was getting massive confidence from these tyres...the warnings were gradual and progressive giving me plenty of time to rescue any slides...

Race 1, the morning 'sprint race' was superb...Zongshen had made the changes I'd asked for and the bike felt good...Despite the gearing changes it was still a slow get away for me and I got balked behind the fast starting Graeme Smith on the Brammo street bike...with a six speed gearbox and sit-up handlebars it's a pretty wide old bus to get around and Graeme was holding the fast line, It wasn't until the fast back straight that I managed to slipstream Graeme and squeeze past into the up hill hairpin. A lap of extremely 'spirited riding' had me find the limit of the wearing Conti's and I hooked onto the back of a 3 bike battle for third, me and the other two Zongshen bikes..We diced heavily for 3 laps, I knocked nearly 4 seconds off my qualifying time, but as my lack of power began to over come the gains made by the magic adrenaline kick, the tyres joined in and although I was able to stay in front of the the number 6 Zongshen piloted by Nelson Choi I had to watch as Chun Kay Kwok seemed to find his groove and chase down the second place bike ridden by Chris Purdie..

                

I was over the moon that I was able to mix it with the other guys for a few laps if a little frustrated that I didn't have the performance to join the scrap for second...

Race 2, the second longer race was my chance to manage my available power and perhaps use the more frugal set-up to enable my race-long pace to be higher and perhaps out-fox the others if they got distracted in another battle...It's usual to turn the performance down for the longer race to prevent over-keen riders forgetting the need to conserve power for a longer race but I asked Zongsen to leave the performance the same and let me try to manage the output for the long game...This request was either ignored or lost in translation as it was immediately clear as we left the line that my performance was much reduced from race one. not only that but in an effort to ensure the Agni bike was pushed off the podium the performance of the tiny number 6 bike with half the weight and only one motor (to the other's two) was turned right up which had the unwanted effect of burning the motor out, gifting me a position but preventing me from fighting for that 2nd or 3rd podium spot..Frustrating to say the least!

The next race is Cadwell, familiar territory for me but no camping stories :) ... lets see if I can 'influence' some changes in my favour, a podium is possible with the right motor management but with the return from injury of last year's championship winner, Ho Chi Fung I'm not sure where I might stand in the overall Zongshen plan...Hopefully I'll have my boy Bobby with me again he's very motivating to have around and I always feel better when he's with me..

Huge thanks again to our friends at I2V and our sponsors every little helps...

Darvill Racing, Round one of the MotoE Championships at the Nurburgring.

The 'out of scope' excursion the Southern 100 last month was welcome prelude to the impending MotoE championships..Its been a long wait but it had finally arrived...

With the sad demise of Hotrax some of the MotoE championship rounds lost a host and the series promoter faced a massive task at the eleventh hour to replace the rounds that were originally to be run with with them. The first round originally scheduled to be run at Schleiz with the IDM championships was also lost due to issues again with the host. Happily the MotoE promoter was able to reschedule a round at the Nurburgring, split over the weekend with a GT car race on the historic Nordschleife and the Dortmunder Motorsport club using the GP circuit.. complicated but guess what? We still get to race motorbikes! :)

More than ever we have to manage an excruciatingly tight budget this year but with Insight 2 Value stepping up with a round by round package as our headline sponsor for the series we could just about manage a drive down to Germany with 2 team members (me and the indomitable Liz 'Half Pint' Warden) unfortunately leaving the the very twitchy boss Alex Aitchison back at home like a pacing, expectant father.. When we arrived at the historic Nurburgring it was clear that wasn't going to be anywhere we could pitch a tent so the contents of the car were squeezed over and that became the accomodation.. :)

Factory accommodation!

This year we're riding the Zongshen DC motor prototype (satellite bike) with support from Zongshen themselves..Unfortunately it's not the fire-breathing AC motor bike as that is staying in China this year on demo duty being the world championship winning machine from last year.

Zongshen satellite bike

After Sticker-ing up the bike with our own sponsor's decals we were ready to roll for the guided sighting laps. These were guided (marshal car in front and behind) as there had been GT cars racing all day on the circuit and it was very dirty and the circuit weren't comfortable letting us out at full speed without it being swept first so we had guided sighting laps due to the amount of time it takes to sweep the full circuit. the fact that the circuit we were using was only half of the circuit we'd be racing on tomorrow didn't seem to compute with the organisers but we were at least able to shake-down and test the bikes...Which just happened to be full speed for me.. ;)

Sunday's race day was a hot day and we were sharing the venue with The Dortmunder Motorsport Club who were running a 'tag' endurance race and a few lightweight club races..Which gave us plenty of time to recharge the bikes between the first 'sprint' race and the second longer race.

Qualifying sheet

Qualifying in the morning on the full 5.2km GP circuit was a short session and I put the little Zongshen number three bike on the front row in third place, fastest of the three Zongshen bikes racing this weekend..A suprise to me... (and the rest of the team I think..) I noticed that the pick-up of the motor was slow but had good 'top-end' speed so I asked for shorter gearing and 'Eddie' (not his real name I think) the Chinese team's crew chief suspected a 'reluctant' controller so he changed it for one from the spare bike. And I was confident of a good result in the first race.

I fluffed the start but managed to get away right on the tail of the other two Zongshen bikes. The University of Nottingham 'ground up' prototype shot off like a stabbed rat, piloted by Daley 'Daisy' Matheson, a newcomer to MotoE and probable legend-in-the-making..Followed closely by Mark Miller on the Vercarmoto Yamaha R6 based prototype..It was apparent immediately that the changes we made didn't have a positive effect and I watched helplessly as all the other bikes pulled away from me..Unfortunately the incredibly engineered prototypes from Vercarmoto and University of Nottingham had mechanical issues on the first lap and had to retire leaving the three Zongshen bikes to duke it out for he podium slots..I took some ridiculous risks to reel in the other two which worked initially and helped massively by the soft sticky Continental slicks but the performance of the number three bike was clearly 'going off' and I had to settle for the bottom step as I watched the battle for the lead develop and leave me behind..The race sheets from race one showed my lap times a rather chunky 4 seconds off my qualifying times but the number one Zongshen bike 4 seconds faster than it's qualifying time...curiouser and curiouser.. ;)

Sticky-icky Ooohwee!

I fed back the information on wattage and temperature for each motor during the race and suggested a few changes to mitigate for the apparent deficit...Eddie took the decision to check the carbon brushes on the right hand motor (from my feedback) and change some of them for new ones...Ready for race two! 

There was a vast improvement in the performance and I got away slightly ahead of the other two Zongshens but frustratingly watched as they both out accelerated me into the first turn.. The improved performance meant that I could stay with the other two Zongshen bikes as the much faster Nottingham prototype disappeared into the distance..We diced hard for the P2 for two laps with proper multi-line attacks from all three riders using as much of the fabulous Nururgring GP curves and inclines as we could and a little more...later I checked my times and those early laps were on a par with my qualifying times..however as the race developed my right hannd motor began to heat up and loose wattage and the upper battery pack began to overheat...I had to slow slightly to manage the temperature differential and hope that the longer race would give me chance to reel in the the others if they overdid their energy use... Unfortunately (for me!) both riders professionally managed the dice and energy consumption and were able to maintain their podium positions..

I'm spectacularly happy with how the bike handles (based on a GP 250) and only a little frustrated with my management of the challenges of electric racing but we did get on the podium and we did get to taste the champagne! And I'm head over heals in love with the Nurburgring... Bring on round 2 in Anglesey! (15th and 16th Aug 2015)

Gallery of the Nurburgring weekend...