Ryans race reports

Round 1 Brands Hatch
My first race with protwins in a new class on a new bike , the ducati 998 was a big jump for me having come off a Suzuki 650 sv twin making 72 bhp the prospect of using more than double that certainly had the butterflies going as I pulled onto the grid for round one.
I couldn't have hoped for a better result position 1 and by a good distance , this supertwins lark is a doddle I thought ,but not for very long as I pulled the bike out of the gravel at the bottom of graham hill bend in race 2 . hmmn not the perfect start after all .

Round 2 . Brands Hatch.
At least I had Sunday to redeem myself will the protwins crew and they all made the effort to come down to watch , now the nerves were really on and to add to my pain it started to rain , my only thoughts were to stay on and finish ,I couldn't face another crash so 3rd place felt great from the back of the grid and my first wet race in 2 years and it gave me a front row start for race 2 , which in turn went to plan with a first place .
all in all a good debut I thought .but I must stay on ...

Round 3 Snetterton
Again the weather threatened with rain on and off with howling winds which in the end would see the event called off but only after both supertwins races had been run .
Race one saw us get a pretty good start with the protwins ducati taking off down the back straight like locomotive on rocket fuel , it was rather embarrassing actually sailing past everyone on lap one surely ill get pulled in for cheating .... but just as I was beginning to think of the champagne the gap to position 2 was growing ever bigger the 998 had a misfire and was only running on one so I pulled it in fearing oil slicks and terminal engine damage. After various phone calls with a much distressed pro twins camp it turned out to be electrical so all we could was change plugs and keep fingers crossed for race 2 .
Race 2 and it still misfired coupled with the wrong tyre choice meant 5th was the best we could do , the wet tyres on a dry track was fun though!

Round 4 Croft
6 hours of driving , no heating or hot water in the hotel and it was super wet again ,the only saving grace was that fellow supertwins racer and protwins runner George Manners had booked a garage and I had press ganged my girlfriend heather into coming along ( reason for the hotel ) ,who was a star making vast amounts of tea all day long. The races went great the bike flew along and we took home 2 wins against some top competition who had turned up to practice for the following days mro races...


Round 5 Cadwell
Oh how I dislike Cadwell Park , no place to race motorcycles but there was a job to do and to be fair there has a great effort to improve safety at the track and bemsee do run a faultless event with safety paramount.
Saturday turned out to be great day, fantastic weather and fantastic results, again the 998 was faultless and a pair of wins came our way again. We were still second in the championship at this point with Dave Higgins 30 odd points in front but I felt we had the measure of the ex British superbike rider and current world endurance rider by now and if we kept things going it would only be a matter of time before we took the lead.

Round 6 Cadwell
How does it go , to finish first you have to ..... make the bloody grid .. yes it was falling out the sky again and the circuit was a totally awash but still ...I could have at least made it from the collecting area to the start grid but no I high sided out of the hairpin and fell on my arse doing enough damage to make the start impossible.
Frantic rebuilding and parts finding care of George Manners and Harry Cole of respro fame meant a chance of clawing back some points in race 2 , the track almost under water by now the bike was aqua planning down the straights but with only 5 laps to do it I made it up to 4th place. Not great but it all helps .. role on Snetterton and rounds 7 and 8.

Next page, round 7 onwards