Mike 'Spike' Edwards - International motorcycle racer

We decided to take Gordon to compete in the final European Supermono round at Assen, but he had not been run or raced since his engine failure back in April 2008.

The last time Gordon had an outing.

Slipstream had loaned a spare engine last year to get him up and running again but since fitting it in we had not even run him up. First I contacted the organisers to make sure I could enter at the last minute and they said, "No problem" and that I could even run Gordon's #9.

Next I went to see Damian at Daytuner Perfomance near Harrogate to give Gordon a run up on his dyno. "Better make sure he's got 5 gears at least" was my thinking, but after warming him up for 15 mins he started backfiring and then cut out! On closer inspection the woodruff key had sheared moving the timing. Not a big job but being so close to our departure it caused me some concern.

Gordon gets a new face, only I can see it though.

A quick shop at Padgetts of Batley, and with a new woodruff key he ran up quite well showing over 70bhp with a good spread of power plus all his gears seemed to be there, so the trip was on!

Crossing Hull to Rotterdam meant we docked early so could leisurely make our way to the circuit via a quick look round Amsterdam and then even fit in a visit to the Ten Kate HQ. The boys had not been to the shop and it is well worth a trip if you are out that way, a more modern or better equipped shop you will never find! Thanks to Maarten for the guided tour of their fantastic race facilities.

Once at the track we found space in a garage and as the weather forecast was so bad I jumped at the opportunity, we shared with Team James, Perry Goldstein, Mark George and a Dutch team running a Kawasaki Moto450 machine.

We haven't any spare wheels for Gordon, so we used the power of the internet. Contacting via Jan Schaper, we found another rider with a couple of Yamaha SZRs who had plenty of spares. Frank van de Biggelaar - he brought a spare rear wheel just for Gordon!

We had arrived early so we had time to do some last minute alterations and modifications to Gordon before retiring to the guesthouse just the other side of Assen.

Practice day: It was very windy and there was rain in the air, we had a 25 minute session at 10:30 so we pushed Gordon down to technical inspection early, just in case we had any 'issues' there.

He passed the noise test (which is very strict at Assen) at 102 Db, the limit was 105Db, no worries there - however I forgot to put explosafe foam in the fuel tank so he was knocked back, furthermore we had to put another #9 on the rear of Gordon seat unit. Quite why I'm not sure but we did it anyway.

Qualifying one: Tyre warmers on in plenty of time after running him up for a while and we were ready for the timed session. I wanted to get out early so I could get plenty of laps on Gordon to familiarise myself with him again. He felt quite good but the rear suspension was too soft however I just wanted to do laps first.

After only 3 laps and starting the 4^th Gordon's motor died momentarily going down the back straight then cut back in again, next corner he spluttered again then again and he also started to backfire. Initially I thought it was the woodruff key again. I backed right off the throttle and limped back to the pits but the motor stopped just as I entered the pit lane.

Steve ran down and pushed him back to the garage, I knew there was no point in rushing about so we pushed him back into the garage and started looking for the reason why it stopped. Spark plug out and we found no spark. First we took off the flywheel again but everything was ok there, next checked the battery, coil, ignition unit, spark plug and various wires and switches etc but still no spark. For no apparent reason he started to spark again, always a problem when you don't actually find anything.

I had the handling to sort out too, Zweitze Rooske was on hand and he dropped in another spring and adjusted the damping to suit. It felt much better so I once again looked forward to the next session.

Qualifying two: I felt better on the bike now I was getting used to him again and quickly got down to a reasonable time, I pushed on hard to see how he felt, but the rear suspension was pattering round the last long left hander before the final chicane and start line.
It was all in vane however as just like the first session Gordon's motor spluttered and died after only three laps this time I was out at the back of the circuit so it was a long push back to the pits. To add insult to injury I had qualified 12^th but was going much faster with plenty more to come I thought.

This time we tested everything but it all seemed to be OK. It was time to start swapping things, first was the ignition pickup that sits on the engine casing and picks up a signal from the flywheel.

After a quick walk around the paddock Wim Hendriks lent me his spare sensor. As soon as we fitted it, Gordon was sparking again, the irony being both the pickups tested the same with a meter!
Quickly we put him back together, tidied up and went out for some food with Perry, Tom, Mark George and Miriam.

Race day: We had morning warm up to see if Gordon would handle better and keep going for more than 4 laps, but after only one lap the session was stopped because Frank van de Biggelaar crashed quite heavily. He was OK in the end but was knocked about quite a bit.
The session resumed and I stayed out for the whole session and Gordon seemed to be going well, with us being 2nd fastest - so it was fingers crossed for the race.

I was in 12^th position for the start on the third row and after a sighting laps and warm up lap Gordon and I waited for the red lights to go out.

Now Gordon has a low (standard) first gear so he rockets off the line, so this would be a bonus helping to get me into a good first corner position. Very important at Assen because turn 2, 3, and 4 are very tricky to pass on the early laps.
True to form Gordon rocketed off the line and I was right up behind the leading three riders into turn one, Stefan Meiners passed me going into the hairpin (turn 4) onto the back straight but I was still in a good place for the first lap.

Down the straights Gordon lost some ground against the top bikes but I managed to hold on for the first lap.
Starting lap two I felt something hit me on the hand not paying much attention to it I pressed on. I was now in 6^th position and could see Mark George and Evert van de Beek up behind me but I was battling with Manfred Kehrmann who was leading the Championship but his Pami BMW kept blasting away down the straights.
As we arrived at the chicane to end lap 2 I could feel something hitting my hand and knocking my knee, after crossing the line to start lap three I looked down to see the whole fairing hanging off the bike, the side fairing bolt had vibrated out!

I had no option but to retire........
I cruised around back to the pits and parked the bike back in the pit box, ordered a cup of tea and watched the rest of the race from the pit wall.

Photo: Mariska Grob

Mark Lawes won with Lex van Dijk and Stefan Meiners having a right old battle for the runner up spot with Lex piping Stefan over the line.

The team were obviously disappointed, so was I but at the end of the day we had come here to have a holiday and throw a race in at the same time, catch up with some of my friends in the paddock, but most of all enjoy ourselves.

Thanks to all who helped make a great weekend possible:
Mary Ralston (mother in law) and Malcolm Whittaker from the Crown at Middlesmoor.

Jan Schaper, Wim Hendriks and Frank van de Biggelaar for helping out Gordon.

Plus not forgetting, Roy and Martin at Slipstream, Peter Day, and Damian at Daytuner Performance.

Onboard laps and paddock video to come...