I know what you are saying m8,but if you dont do this, you are not allow to race.
I will hopefully be doing the Bemsee race school day as well,which loads of people have said it is worth doing, i will give you a shout when i do my test....
what club are you thinking of joining next year.and what bike will you be racing..

Yep the course I did was well worth it, the briefing in the cafe and detailed walk of the track took up the whole morning, probably in the region of 3 1/2 hours, then the afternoon consisted of 4 track sessions each of 12 to 15 minutes. At todays costs the same sort of thing would probably cost nearer to £130, so I suppose you could split it £50 for the morning Briefings and £80 for the afternoon track time. Not cheap but due to the quality of the input I thought it good value. The added Bonus was watching how it should be done during the lunch break when Hislop and Mckenzie were out on their Yamahas along with Ray Stringer and Max Vincent on their Sabre Airways ZXRs

Almost certainly, I'll be joining NewEra and there is a good chance I'll join Bemsee as well, since they have an April date at Croft in their preliminary schedule. Croft is my "local" circuit, and I know it well.

NewEra have a good schedule for tracks in the Northern half of England: Oulton, Donnington, Cadwell, Mallory. But this is still subject to change as two of my mates are going to start at the same time and we plan on doing it together. We should probably call ourselves "Inept Racing" or something like.:lol: My mates are on GSXR750s and I'll race my 996RS (it'll be bloody expensive!). With NewEra I think we're eligble for either Sound of Thunder or ProBike. Anyone have input into which one to enter?

Yeah, I've resigned myself now that the cost of entry is now an additional £50 and a day off work.:mad:

How do find out about ACU test days? Their website is useless for this.

Felix I think the ACU knocked the Novice training days on the head a couple of years ago, as so many people were doing trackdays and race schools with some counting as a signature on your license.
With New Era I usually race in the SoT class and then do one of the Open races for the additional cost. Don't for get you will probably need a transponder at all New Era races this year both Super Club and Club.
I will again be renewing my New Era membership along with my North Glos Membership (that lot that have been on Born to be Wild very recently) as I usually get 4 races with them for less than the cost of 3 with New Era, unless its Thruxton or Donington and next season possibly Silverstone.

Thanks for the feedback, skidlids. See you out there...

Not planning on many SoT races this year, intend to be out on the 600 more in the 600 class, the open and hopefully the streetstocks. Which will be fun also allows me to help out mates in the SoT class with wheel changes, time keeping etc and they'll hopefully do the same for me. if I can sort out a 400 for the TT for my mate to ride I may well race that later in the year as well.
After all its all done in the name of FUN

I have to agree with the test day, but still hold reservations to its efectivness.

I think you should have novice starter classes, as to many novices turn up & start racing on bikes far to powerful for there capabilities.

Example (from my own experiance)

While having my second race of the 2002 season i was T-boned going imto the bus stop at Mallory ended up with very bad beak of the tib & fib of my right leg, in hospital for five days, major pin & screw operation, off work for three months, still not racing at the mo & on a 10 month waiting list to get the pin out.
The guy who hit me was a novice on his second meetiing on a fully tricked & tuned RVF400 75 bhp(I was on a mildly tuned ZXR doing 56.0 second laps, before Edwinas) when he thought he could go up the inside of me going into the bus stop.

And yes I agree there are some v good novices out there on powerful bikes, but they are in a minority.

Roadstocks or something simalar should be used for novices in there first year.

Chris.:roll:

Up until 1997 Novices were only allowed to ride up to 600cc bikes, hence the popularity of the class, I purchased my first race bike a 600 towards the end of that year, then they changed the rules over the winter so that in 1998 Novices could ride any bike they choose to providing they held a full road license and rather than getting a Novice License they would qualify as a intermediate Novice. Not sure if this was a good idea, the reason behind the ACU thinking was to allow riders who rode bigger bikes on the road and trackdays to be able to ride the same bikes when starting racing. For some this is OK but for the majority i'm not sure. if anybody ever read in MCN the account of Adam Duckworth's first race you would have read a very honest article from somebody who had considered themselves fast on trackdays, saying he was always amongst the top guys in the fast group. But after racing his far from standard R1 at Donington Park with New Era, he had a different opinion of his own speed.
Must admit I had a few choice words for him through my helmet as I was stuck behind him for a while especially down Craner, still I managed to get my 600 Steelie past him in the end and pull out half a lap on him.
Even at the TT in the Production 1000 class there is only about 1/3 of the field that can really push these modern 1000cc production bikes.

I'd be interesting in reading the article you mention. Happen to have a copy? Or know where it's available?

not sure if I kept that article, the race meeting was March 12th 2000, so a few years ago. I'll have a look through my scrap books.