Before I fill you in on the next racing adventure of 2022, there is someone who we are over whelmed by their generosity…….. Mr Boris Stroud of Marin Motorsport. After reading our face book post from Anglesey and seeing our predicament, he very kindly, and surprisingly, sourced us a whole bike with our CBR 600 rr engine that we can use for our outfit. Had this opportunity had not of happened, we may of had to finish our race season early as we just cannot keep losing engines and trying to find the money to get them rebuilt. There’s only so much you can do before you have to say ‘that’s it for this year’! Matty went and collected it and we should have it with us over the next few weeks, then it can start being prepped for the sidecar. Its a season saver and we are utterly grateful. Thank you Boris for your support.

Back to the Southern 100, Another early hours ferry, arrived to a quite paddock and set up camp. Always love this meeting, its well run by the Southern 100 club and all the hard work that goes into it shows as its always so popular with race fans. A little over 4 miles around this road circuit, quite bumpy sections and very fast sections…. all in all its very exciting for racers and spectators.

The weather was perfect and with Matty arriving on Sunday evening, Wayne took Ben out for the Church service at St Lupus, Malew Church…… of course it means they get to do a couple of laps on the open road on the sidecar as these are memorial laps for our fallen friends, so its always an honour to be allowed to do it., and the vicar always blesses the outfit too!

Great to Mark and Sarah here too… this is Sarahs’ holiday and has been since she was a baby! Many many thanks for all your help Mark too, we really appreciate it. Good to catch up!

Monday signing on for the boys, give the outfit a good going over and get ready for the last practice session of the evening, usually about 8.15pm, with low sun and lots of flies! I got a feeling something’s not right, can quite believe this again…… we have a tired standard engine as a spare so Wayne has made a hard decision to change engines and hope for the best, we cant risk the bike cutting out or seizing up mid race so lets get on with it. We did have a bit of neighbourly brain waves as Mark Gash asked to look at our fuel…… he said ‘pour some fuel in a glass for me’…… well we just thought he wanted a drink…..you never know……. but after careful examination, he told us there’s a problem with the fuel, the same fuel we’d used at the TT and Anglesey! After checking the spec sheet that we hadn’t received with the fuel, we found it contained a fairly high level of ethanol which is unsuitable for our engine and would of caused/contributed to the catastrophic failures that our engines suffered.

I cant quite explain the emotions to this news, on one hand so pleased we’d actually found the problem and on the other hand, gutted we didn’t think to change the fuel before. We just assumed our fuel was top notch like it always has been in the past. You just never know i guess! anyway. with the old fuel drained out and some new fresh fuel from Alan Thomas and team, we had a few minutes to spare to get through scrutineering and go out for qualifying! What a rush but we did it and the bike ran well too! Relief at last!!

Ready for race one on Wednesday, excited and raring to go. We had our full team around us with Ben, Nikki and Miley, Helen and John, Stu and Jenn, Dirty Weekender Van Conversions, Jonny, Nick, Chloe, Jacob and their awesome bunch of friends. With the racers on the start line, myself and Lisa went to watch at Ballakieghan which was very fast and close to the wall! an absolutely cracking few laps, with some very close and nail biting racing……. Barry and Pauline, Mattys dad and mum, we’re just up from us and they were so happy to see them both out there, having a proper race up towards the front where they should be. Crossing the line they finished in 4th place…… really happy for the whole team as we needed that, most of all for Wayne and Matty…. finally they got to show everyone what a great team they make together. With the right equipment, working properly, they can get themselves back up there and start to enjoy racing again!

Race 2 on thursday, a little earlier in the day so it meant the sun wasn’t too low which makes a huge difference on the start line. Wayne had a good start but the teams up front left the second part of the group and had their own battle. Wayne and Matty we having one the best races i seen with them both, along side was Conrad and Greg lambert. Some very close and fast out breaking manoeuvres, exciting and nail biting overtaking, three a breast coming past us at Ballakeigan…… with the Crowe team up front having spun off, it meant 3rd place was up for grabs. On the very last lap, although Wayne and Matty were right in the thick of it, the tired engine just didn’t have enough power to get past Greg and Conrad…… so at the flag they took a stunning 5th place finish. Weldone team!!

Nikki giving Miley her first flying lesson!

Let the celebrations begin Jonny, Stu and Jenn.

Real Racing would like to thank everyone who’s help us so far this year, we always welcome new supporters and sponsors, and after the season so far, we have so much more to prove how good we are as a team. One person i’m extremely glad to see at the Southern this year, is our dear friend Horst. It wasn’t that long ago that he was seriously ill in hospital with, what i can only describe as a broken heart….. so glad you were there, weldone to Keith and Al for dragging you there!!