Racing

It's been suggested to me that I should have a 'donate here' link on this blog. To be honest, the idea hadn't occured to me ("People will give me money to go racing?") but I could certainly do with some help (my tyre bill alone is going to be well over £2,000).

So, if you feel that you would like to support my TT campaign, then please go to www.paypal.com, click on 'Send Money', and send it to my account using 'neal@champ.org.uk' as the recipient.

I'll create a 'roll call of honour' of those who have helped. And of course, no donation is too small.

Of course, if you think this is an outrageous suggestion, then you can add your comments to this post!

So, here's the first post in my TT 2008 blog. I intended to start this about 3 months ago, detailing my preparation for my first TT, but I've been too busy preparing for my first TT. But now there's only 10 days to go, and almost everything that needed to be done has been done.

For those who may not be familiar with the details, some background info:

• Rider: Neal Champion
• Event: Isle of Man TT
• Previous racing experience: lots, but specifically for the TT, three Manx Grand Prixes, with a best finish of 9th in 2007 (and a best lap of 115mph).
• Supersport 600: Kawaskai ZX6RR (as I rode in the 2007 MGP) - generously loaned by Keith McKay
• Superstock 1000: Kawasaki ZX10R (as ridden by Chris Foster in the 2006 TT) - generously loaned by Simon Oliver
• Superbike : KwackZilla - Superbike spec ZX10R

The story so far:

• Got some good mates in to help. Alex and Stu are there for the whole fortnight, Keith will be providing workshop and local support, and Steve, Simon, Nigel, Chris and Mike will be helping out. Without them, the whole undertaking would be impossible.
• Planned to do the NW200, but realised the costs and logistics were beyond us. Decided to do the less fancied, but perhaps more relevant, Jurby Road Race instead :-)
• Ordered some new MJK leathers from Graham at GLF Accessories
• Rode KwackZilla for the first time at a freezing cold Jurby airfield in April, on mismatched tyres. Crashed it.
• Fixed it and took it testing a month later. Got it working ok - steering pretty well, and coping with the bumps, except for forks not working on max travel
• Sent forks to Dave Hagon - now modified and set up.
• Ordered a 16.5" front wheel from Dymag to match the rear 16.5" Marchesini. STOP PRESS: just spoke to Dymag - looks unlikely that they'll be able to complete the order in time. So I'll be running on 17" front, 16.5" rear, which is not ideal, tho may actually work ok at the TT.
• Found out this week that all bikes at the TT run to FIM/MCRCB specs, which nowadays mandate secondary protection on engine covers. Tracked down the suppliers to MSS Discovery and Hawk Kawasaki and ordered 3 sets (at £140 each...)

There's probably loads more, but that should set the scene. I'm off to the Island on Friday, racing KwackZilla at Jurby Road on Saturday. While this will be 'racing', I'll be treating it as a test session to get the bike working over the bumps (Jurby is very bumpy, and very fast).