It wasn’t helped by the fact that when I got him back on his wheels for the first time after the rebuild he wouldn’t run for anymore than a few seconds. Steve McNichol and I tried everything we knew to get him going with no avail.

So I decided to take the whole week off work and concentrate on Gordon, I couldn’t afford to miss Pembrey.
Monday took me to Peter Day’s to finish off the new sub frame and new exhaust mountings, plus a host of other bits and bobs.

 Tuesday - down to Slipstream to investigate the mystery of Gordon’s engine woes, Roy and I worked all morning changing every component on his electrical circuit. Eventually we swapped over the battery even though it tested ok only to find it was internally damaged and was faulty!

Fitting a second hand bike battery cured the problem immediately, so I rushed out and bought a replacement battery.

From there I went straight to Steve Jordan’s to get him to have a look at the Ducati forks I had put in to replace the original units. They were far too hard - coming out of a Ducati that weighs 40 to 50 kg more than Gordon.

Action photo by Paul and Linda.
Click here to visit the PLJPhoto site:

Steve stripped the forks to find the springs were 0.95kg units which is the sort of spring you would use in a Superbike not a Supermono, unfortunately he had not got a suitable replacement, so he lowered the oil level and altered the preload setting but could do very little in time for Pembrey.

Now into Wednesday I contacted Dave Mabbut from Hottrax and asked could he fit me in on a trackday he was running at Silverstone, being the top bloke that he is he agreed for me to join them at Silverstone.

There would have been no point going to Pembrey without testing and setup before hand with only a 10 minute practice at the Welsh circuit. Good job really as Gordon was still a long way from being right, even with his new battery he wasn’t there. Firstly he flooded the airbox with dirt caught in the needle in the float bowl, then the handlebars coming loose and then there was still the issue of setting the forks up correctly.

Thursday: back home and I spent the whole day repairing the belly pan from the old fairing and fixing in a ‘dam’ in the new belly pan.

Then getting it to fit was another story!

Friday: We wanted to get down to Pembrey in good time so to get the bike through technical inspection Friday to save time on the race morning. However the rain in the Yorkshire region caused long delays on the roads making us miss the technical inspection.

Race day: the weather was going to cause problems with showers on and off all weekend, the first practice was damp so I had the right tyres using the Dunlop GP209’s from uncle Phil Plater at Dunlop.

I wanted to make sure Gordon worked so a damp session suited me just fine. Everything went well and we looked forward to timed practice. By now the track had dried so we could all push a little harder and get a good time.

Pembrey has some fast long corners, that and the bumps caused Gordon to shake his head and move around going thought these turns (not good). Then towards the end of the session the front brake started to fade causing the brake lever to come back to the bars, this was going to be a problem.
I had to replace the calliper because the original would not fit the new fork, Roy Thursby kindly loaned me a calliper from a Ducati 900 SS that fitted nicely, however I neglected to change the road pads and I think on the track they were over heating a bit....

Whose idea was this project?

More worrying was the fact that on the run down lap the motor cut out for a short time, I thought nothing of it at the time thinking about the brake problem.

I had qualified Gordon in 3^rd place and was surprised to be the first Supermono surrounded by Mnimono’s!

Race one: as I rolled into the warm up area things looked good, I had a great grid position and the bike felt much better than he had done before, then the motor cut out!

I glanced down and noticed the instruments had gone out then came back on, just like the mystery problem than before. I prayed it wasn’t and managed to restart with the help of Mick James and his rollers.

Out on to the track for the sighting lap and it cut out again, as I rolled up to the line to form the grid it cut out once again, I had no option but to pull off the grid not wanting to put myself and the other competitors any risk of me stalling on the line causing a major incident. There was nothing I could do with the remaining time and had to watch the field set off for race one.

I now knew it was the battery failing again and once we got Gordon back to the paddock the Smith’s sisters loaned me their spare battery and quick replacing it instantly cured the problem.

Sunday: With morning practice I had chance to try Gordon’s new battery, it worked perfectly and a check over afterwards to make sure everything was still intact I looked forward to a good race.

Then the weather turn nasty, starting with fine drizzle then harder and harder it came down, before long the track was totally wet with laying water.

As I had no spare wheels I kept my fingers crossed things would improve. I had wet tyres but would have little or no time to make the change. The Dunlop GP’s would work fine if it was damp or dry but if there was too much water on the track I would need the wets.

Finally the weather turned and the sun came out but would it dry up in time.

As they called our race everyone rushed around, some people putting in wets some putting in slicks, I decided just to leave the GP’s in and have in effect a pair of intermediate tyres, best of both worlds.

If you ran off line it was still quite wet so passing was going to be a bit tricky, so a good start would be more important than ever.

Warm up lap over and away we went into turn one.

Exiting it I was in second place behind Championship leader Glen English, I followed him round for a couple of laps before making the pass into the hairpin, next lap Nick Chadwick passed me on the East West KTM so I followed him for another lap before the red flags came out due to Glen crashing out.

Action photo by Paul and Linda.
Click here to visit the PLJPhoto site:

 Reforming on the grid we were told a new race of only 12 laps. Just before the red flags came out I had noticed the brake lever was starting to come back to the bars again so I adjusted the lever out as far as I could and still be able to reach it.

Before we knew it we were off again into turn one, this time I came out in front so I stuck my head down and pressed on for a couple of laps. Nick Chadwick was hard on my heals but we were both well clear of the rest of the field.

The brake problem was showing its head again so I decided to ease back a little to make sure I had a brake towards the end of the race.

I moved over and let Nick pass and used him as a marker to gauge my pace, this and my pit board which was now showing a gap of 9 seconds!

Throw in a few back markers to slow thing down a little and the gap remained around 7 to 8 seconds for the rest of the race, Nick pulled away a couple of seconds but I was more than happy to bring Gordon home in second place with a great result for Michael Payne in third place.

There are lots of ‘ifs and buts’ about the forks not being right and the brake pads being incorrect but the result is still the same, a good one!

Hadn't seen 'Monica' (S.Ellis) for years - handy rider, and now he's thinking about joining the most free thinking class in Britain.

I had to keep my eye out for that Michael Payne, every time I was out - he was miraculously just behind me - the last person who did that on a regular basis was James Toseland in the British SS600 Championship in 1995 - just ask him!

There is a long break now until 11/12^th August at Donington and with no crash damage to repair I can focus on refining Gordon instead of rebuilding him. I’m going to fit in some Dyno time and a test day somewhere - so for Donington he should be finally on the pace, watch out boys Gordon’s ALIVE……

Thanks to every one of Gordon’s  special friends for their support so far, and if you haven’t already - get your Gordon’s alive membership before they are all sold, remember £60 for a 1 in 100 chance to win Gordon a double rostrum placed machine now and that can’t be bad.

You can visit Gordon's personal site by clicking here:

or visit the blog by clicking here:

www.no1bloke.blogspot.com