Veteran racer Mike Edwards has spent recent weeks helping to dial in a National Superstock Ducati 1198S in the British Superbike paddock and nailing Mark Hannah's Suzuki's F450. He tells it better than we do:
"I enjoyed working with Roy and Paul Armstrong of Italsport, together with their rider Rick Fogg – and they asked me again to join them for the next BSB Superstock event at Donington Park. After taking the decision not to race at Oulton Park, I was banking on the fact that Donington would be kinder to the bike, and that we might have an easier time.
"Roy had made some alterations in the mean time between events, and straight away out on track in the free practice session the bike felt better. Then we made some further alterations, changing the fork springs and ride height.
"Once again, I went faster – but as usual, when you up the pace, you just change the problem to something else. I even tried lowering the sensitivity of the traction control for the second qualifying session – but I wasn’t quite ready for that – so put it back to where I felt I happiest. I ultimately qualified 21st on a 1'37.515
"But the good news was that I felt comfortable enough to actually race the bike this time. So on Bank Holiday Monday, I lined up on the grid with another 41 riders and went for it.
"Fifteen laps later, I crossed the line in 13th, having done a 1'36.400, I don’t think that’s too bad for an ‘old duffer’. Hopefully now we will be able to go somewhere and get plenty of track time to continue with the progress.
"Mark Hanna has been working hard on Sabina ready for this weekend’s outing at Thundersport Oulton Park. He has been a bit busy, building Michael Rutter’s bike for the TT, only finishing at 04:30am Monday, but since then, has managed to do some work on the dyno with her, sending me text messages with updates all week. He’s sorted the gear lever/quick shifter and strengthened it for my big feet!
"We are going for Friday’s practice day, to test the tweaks that Mark has been working on, then the racing is just two events on the Saturday.
Unfortunately, after a week of glorious sunshine, it looks like this weekend is going to suffer from mixed ‘cloudy and rain’ – nice.
"However, it might just be the thing to take away the straight power advantage of some of the bigger bikes that we are mixed in with: the Jnr. Powerbikes, Minitwins, and Streetfighters.
"Mind you, it’s not them I’m racing against, it’s Steve Tomes and his Moto450 that I have to beat. I’m looking forward to it as I have raced with Steve for years, on lots of different bikes, and it’s really good fun being on track with him. I certainly will be giving it my best!"
