The Move From Karts to Bikes

We have always taken an interest in all types of motorsport, and over the past couple of years we had been hearing a lot of reports about the Aprilia Superteens Championship, a motorbike race series organised by Ian Newton of In Competition and Thundersport GB. The series sounded too good to be true, with fantastic packages for all competitors, including Aprilia RS 125 Race Bikes, Nitro racewear, televised long circuit racing throughout Great Britain, superb help and support from the organisers and above all a great friendly atmosphere throughout the pits. It sounded fantastic. If only we had heard about it years ago, he was 16 years old now & had never rode a motorbike before. He was excellent in a kart but the thought of racing bikes long circuit in the Aprilia Superteens series was very appealing. It didn't take Danny long to decide, he had proved he could win on four wheels and he now wanted to see if he could adapt his race knowledge to two wheels.

In July 2008 we made the transition and bought his first bike. We spent the rest of the month preparing the bike from road bike to race bike, leaving the engine as standard for the duration of 2008 while we gained some experience. Our first race meeting with the Aprilia Superteens was already booked for the 23rd & 24th August at Pembrey in South Wales, so we had to move quickly and try to organise somewhere to learn to ride. We rang Donington Park race circuit to book a half days tuition and was informed that it was not for riders who had never rode before. It was stipulated that he must be able to ride the bike safely and change gears. I explained that he would be able to meet the standards before we arrived and we booked him in for Wednesday 13th August. It was now the 24th July and we had a family holiday booked. We flew out a couple of days later and while we were away we made calls to most of the kart circuits we had raced at to ask if we could use the circuit to learn to ride the bike on the weekend of the 9th / 10th August when we returned home. None of the circuits could help, they either had something on with other events or they couldn’t have bikes on the track. When we arrived home we made one final call to a small circuit we had heard about in Preston, called Trax and finally took the bike out for the very first time on Sunday 10th August. He spent the afternoon learning how to ride the bike and change gears. We could now attend Donington on the following Wednesday and at least we would have ridden before our Pembrey debut.

Pembrey Debut

Danny’s very first meeting was at Pembrey Circuit, South Wales on the weekend of 22^nd—24^th August 2008. He put up a fantastic performance for his very first race meeting on a motorbike. The lap times over the weekend were as follows:-

Friday 22^nd August
Best lap time of the day, set in his 3^rd session on the track – 1:13.98 seconds

Saturday 23^rd August
^1st Qualifying Session:-  Danny’s fastest Lap 1:13.781sec (Lap times of other racers: Fastest —1:06.780 Slowest 1:24.532)
^2nd Qualifying Session:- Danny’s fastest Lap 1:11.250 sec (Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:06.824 Slowest 1:21.092)

Qualified 22^nd on the Grid out of 30 Competitors

Race 1 – Danny’s fastest Lap 1:10.938 sec   (Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:06.456 Slowest 1:18.227)

Race2 - Danny’s fastest Lap 1:12.235 sec    (Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:06.785 Slowest 1:18.500)

Sunday 24^th August

Danny went out in his warm up session for the very first time in the wet and was 13^th fastest out of 30. Lapping in 1:22.396(Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:17.050 Slowest 1:51.496). So not bad for his very first time on a bike in the wet.

Race 1 – a Half wet Half dry sessionFastest Lap set By Danny 1:13.178 (Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:09.139 Slowest 1:23.962)

Race 2 – Dry SessionFastest Lap By Danny 1:11.494 (Lap times of other racers: Fastest 1:07.003 Slowest 1:17.408)

Check out the Racing Calendar for his forthcoming races.