Round 10 Cadwell Park Sept 2012

The last meeting of the season was Cadwell, there's always a good turnout for this meeting, lots of entries, big grids and plenty of spectators. We took advantage of a track day that was being run for classic bikes on the Friday, the weather was on and off, bit of rain in the morning and very cold, even when the sun came out.
Although the Vincent has been running well all year, the small number of entrants in the class and the fact that those that are in the class have so much more power, meant we were not in contention for the championship so Dad and Richard had some fun riding the bike around Cadwell without fear that we would miss it if it blew up or got broken...(which it didn’t!) and i got some laps in on the BMW.
Race day on saturday was cold but dry, only one race on the HRD as they ran out of time for the 2nd, i came in 5th, a very average race with little action from my point of view, riding around on my own behind the faster bikes and infront of the slower ones...Another 5th and a 6th place on the Sunday. We will have to see what we will do next year with the HRD as it is becoming a bit mundane with no one to race against.
Race 1 on the BMW in the BEARS championship i started well but soon found myself relegated to 4th place, there were some new faces and new bikes that had come along for the Cadwell finale and were going well.
Race 2 i got off to a flying start from the 3rd row and found myself in the lead, after a lap i was passed by Nigel Palmer on his Ducati who was going like stink and thankfully was a classic invited entry so not point scoring. I kept ahead of the BEARS pack until the last lap where Rob Paget on the Guzzi LE Mans made a do or die pass and stuffed it up the inside at the bottom of the mountain, i had to yield and lost momentum up the mountain and he beat me to the line. It was a harsh but fair move, he came up afterwards and apologised, but there was no need, thats racing.
Sunday morning came and with it the rain. For race 3 of the BEARS it was cold, damp and slippery and spitting with rain, On the warm up lap i could feel the bike slipping around struggling to get heat into the tyres, so as i arrived back at the start line i had already decided i was going to take it easy. Off the line and the BM spun up on the painted lines and i had to close the throttle, i was running in 6th place at the end of lap 1, then Ron Maul overtook me on the boxer and pulled away. As the race went on the tyres got some warmth in them and i could feel the tarmac a bit better, 2 bikes in front went off, Rob on the Guzzi crashed at the mountain and another Guzzi pulled up, i was pulling Ron in to take 2nd place on the last lap and i managed to get past up the mountain before hall bends and held him off to the flag.
I did another race on the HRD and by this time is very wet so i decided to sit out the last BEARS race as the road tyres on the K100 were not up to the conditions, i couldn’t improve on my championship position and the title was to be decided between Rob Lawton and Ron Maul in this race. I didn’t want to get in their way as i knew they would be going at it and id already made Ron have to work a bit harder by beating him in the last race! (for which he duly punched me in the arm for afterwards!)
I watched them go round and they had a good dice, there was some confusion and shenanigans as to the title winner and i am still not sure who won the race or the championship! But i guess we will find out in due course. We finished the season 3rd overall (or possibly 2nd, who knows)
Next year we plan to campaign the revamped K100 again in the BEARS and hopefully without all the messing about with the forks and starting from the back of the grid we can do even better.

Results