[keefer]

Originally posted by the old man
This is getting out of hand (in my humble oppinion). I'm running a 620 (noisy cans and tweaked fueling) and came 5th and 4th (infront of Andrew). Does this make me a baddy? ********.

I read the rules like everyone else and made a decission about which would be the most competative solution. I spent every spare penny I had (of my own money, no sponsors, no outside help)(incidentally, I'm a locksmith, blue collar, a trade, I make my living driving arround in a van - just so you know) to build what I thought was the best bike I could for the money I could afford, and I rode my flaming socks off on Sunday. I wanted a top three finish but it didn't happen because I was beaten by people who, on the day were quicker than me.

This is racing, people want to win and if the rules permit it then someone will do it. It's like life, you make your decissions and you live with the concequences.

NOW.

On Friday I followed Geoff's (reputed) big bore and it wasn't significantly quicker down the straight than my 620. Yet on Sunday Geoff was over a second a lap quicker than anyone else - that's because on the day he was the better rider. It's as simple as that. Let me swap bikes with Geoff and I believe he would still have beaten me - on Sunday.

If you take out Geoff's bike and the Ducati Dealer bikes (incidentally the dealers can probably only run current Ducati kit, so they have virtually no choice over what they run) then the rest of the field (from me downwards) is a fairly well sorted mix of injected and carburetted bikes. To my mind that goes a long way to negating the big bore / 620 conspiracy.

Consider this. Even if Geoff does have the hottest bike on the grid, how much power do we seriously thing it makes, maybe 2 or 3 bhp up on a well prepared 620? On Saturday I raced in the SOT and beat an Aprillia Mille and a 996; both almost certainly putting out in excess of TWICE the power of my 620 sport. Geoff's lap time of Sunday would have got him a 4TH PLACE IN SOT - agains bike with over TWICE THE POWER.

Sunday's results have very little to do with power, they are about rider ability and that's the one comodity that cost each of us nothing. Short of a one make class like the R6 Cup, this is probably one of the closest technical classes any of us could race in. Instead of worrying about a handfull of bhp we should all leave Cadwell focused on inproving our ability - that's what I'm doing.

As an asside, I'm running a standard rear shock on my bike because I could not afford a fancy Ohlins / White Power etc. So I object most strongly to the unfair advantage possessed by those people who have most unsportingly gone out and spent huge amounts of money on exotic suspension components!

well said