Oschersleben 4hrs, Friday 26th August

Ochersleben has been a firm favourite with the team since the mid-1990s when the 24hrs race was conceived. Battle after battle was fought there, some absolute epics. Like in 1999, when we broke a cam chain whilst in the top three; pushed in, stripped it, got a new chain from the spare engine, retimed and fitted it, and carried on to a top ten finish. Those were the days; Rees, Bonhuil, Linden. And the marvellous 24hrs race win in 2001, a true race long battle with Zongshens, Jerman, Mertens and Nowland, which we won....true payback for Zongshen buying most of the 2000 Phase One rider line-up after we won the world championship the year before. That was Peter Linden's last world endurance race too... what a way to bow out of the WEC.... a 24hrs race win.

Anyhow, enough of that.... This weekend's race will be held at 16.00 on Friday PM. Peter Linden and Ian Simpson will be aboard, supported by a tight little team of five of us. We will be taking all three bikes; overkill really, but one is there just to run-in, and the other as a spare. We are learning all the time about these particular engines, and all are fresh for this latter part of the season.

Next will be the Classic Bol in mid-September (Linden/Brasher); an event that really should be renamed- post classic bol, with some classic bikes in support ! We go there to defend our 2015 classic bike win, in a field that will probably be around 50/50 with post classic....should be interesting....   Despite the absolutely rubbish facilities, remote paddock (no more than a field actually) and tented pits, its difficult to stay away....its still Paul Ricard after all, its still the south of France in September and above all its still the
Bol d Ór.....

Our last race will be the final EWC round at Aragon. We go there as absolute series leaders, but with only a slender margin ahead of Taurus, with Roadrunner and of course Team Force all within striking distance....

Thank you all for your continued support..... More after Osch ...RB


Bill Simpson
I am delighted to say that I visited Bill last week, the day after he was discharged from Dumfries Royal Infirmary and over two months after his horrific accident at East Fortune. I found him in good spirits, very thankfull to still be here and looking forward to getting back to fitness. I was so worried that after such a lengthy time in a coma he may have lost some of his wit; but no, Bill was back to full strength mentally.....but there is going to be some hard word ahead physically - he does however expect to make a full recovery...

Bill Simpson in South Africa earlier this year

Sweatshop Phase One grab series lead at Spa !

A top performance after a difficult build up gave the team a five point advantage after last weekend's Spa race. Stéphane Mertens and Mike Dickinson scored a solid third place behind winners Roadrunner Suzuki and second placed Taurus Suzuki. Peter Lindén and Hugh Brasher on the team's second entry took fourth position.












The Roadrunner Suzuki win was much celebrated as it was the team's first win in the series, with Henk van der Mark and Dirk Brand having tried for four seasons.

The Sweatshop Phase One meeting started well with a largely successful test day on Thursday, however right at the end of the day a starter motor clutch disintegrated sending debris around the engine. This necessitated a double engine change and an overnight strip to swap gearboxes.!


Qualifying went reasonably well with Mertens/Dickinson ending fastest for the team in third overall, with Lindén/Brasher in eleventh out of the sixty entrants.

During warm up a mysterious power loss occurred, which robbed the Mertens/Dickinson bike of perhaps 25 BHP. As warm up was only 15 mins before the race the team had no option but to start the race in that condition. Because of this lap times were some seven seconds slower than expected. !! Dogged determination and great riding allowed the Teams to hold third and fourth position for much of the latter half of the race. Pits tops were far from pretty at this event, much due to the overcrowding of the pit lane (60 teams using only half the garages) and the lack of light, making an already dangerous area even worse. Despite that, to their credit, the pit crew produced two 100% reliable machines to take them to the top of the table.......  

Early leaders Team Force DNFed due to Richard Hubin crashing heavily after mid distance. He broke a shoulder and ribs in the fall.

Ian Simpson and team mechanic Phill Haynes could not be at the event due to family medical issues.

John McGuinness and Steven Neate rode their MOTUL/Neate entered Harris Honda at this event bringing great publicity to the series and which received popular support. Their result was not classified.

Oschersleben next in August.

Series standings;



Sweatshop Phase One 32pts
Taurus Suzuki  27pts
Team Force  25pts
Roadrunner Suzuki 25pts
Team Neate 20pts
Team Nocki  20pts

Race resuls and more later, ......RB


Pictures by Jonathan Godin, more to follow.
 

Two Bike Assault at Spa

Peter Lindén and Ian Simpson at Paul Ricard

The most competitive race of the FIM European Classic Series is the Spa 4hrs. This year will be no exception with 60 entries lining up to take their chances. Favourites must be Kaiser Kawasaki, who were last year's winners and who also won in 2013. The on-form Neates, this time entering two teams, one including top TT star John McGuinness, must also be up there. And yet Team Force, with Richard Hubin and Greg Fastré must consider themselves top dogs at their home circuit. Not to mention Alf's Kawasaki, with Mike Edwards and Roadrunner Suzuki - honestly, any one of seven or eight teams could win.

Sweatshop Phase One finished second in 2015, (Lindén /Brasher) and is determined to go one step higher this year. The two bike entry for the Saturday night race this weekend will be Stéphane Mertens / Mike Dickinson (last years Classic Bol and Misano winner), plus Peter Linden / Hugh Brasher.

Currently, the team lie in third position in the championship but have their tails very much up after last months Mettet ( non-championship) win.

Free practice is Friday AM, Qualifying and night practice Friday PM and the race starts at 20.00 on Saturday night.

All the team wish Bill Simpson ( Ian's father) a swift and complete recovery after his horrific crash at East Fortune ten days ago. Ian is understandably sitting out of Spa this year.

Lets do it for Bill !

See you there.

RB  

Bank Holiday Blitz at Mettet

Peter Lindén and Stéphane Mertens scored a convincing win at the Mettet 4 hrs last weekend. For the first time the race had a classic and a hybrid post-classic class, attracting 34 starters. Sweatshop Phase One won the classic class and the race overall. On Saturday, leg one of the race went exactly to plan. Fastest man Mertens ( pole 1.11.7 secs) started and finished, with Lindén completing the long mid-stint. The team led the race from start to finish. The 118 Senechal Suzuki pushed hard but were still four laps behind at the flag. Michel Siméon/Fred Tacheny won the post classic class (5th overall) and Team Force (Greg Fastré/Richard Hubin) went out early with a big oil mess on their new post classic Harris Suzuki.

The Sunday afternoon leg was not quite so straightforward. Mertens again started , this time in wet and raining conditions. Stop one went to plan, but as Mertens relaxed he noticed oil on his left boot.
Consequently the team pulled Peter Linden in early and changed to a three stop strategy. Stop two meant losing over half of the teams race one winning margin of four laps, by bringing the bike into the pitbox for a clean up and initial diagnosis. Nothing was obvious, so the team used instant-seal on all left side gasketted joints and pushed on with Mertens aboard. Post stop discussion and analysis revealed more. Team members had spotted the starter motor move when the start button was pushed. All was clear. the starter had either come loose or broken. The next stop proved the latter to be true, a palliative repair was applied and Lindén cruised gingerly to the flag for the overall and class win with a two lap margin.

Britain's Steve Clark and Steve Boam scored an excellent 3rd place, in class, on their SCERT Harris Suzuki 1230 after a trouble free race - albeit after changing engines on the Saturday after a crankshaft failure.

Roger Ruiz, one of the five world champions present at Mettet, had a fantastic weekend, coming back from a light crash on lap two of leg one and then going on to finish second on Sunday - and all from a guy who is 70 in September.

Fastest lap; Stéphane Mertens 1.10.9 secs

Top Ten Results Overall

1  Peter Lindén /Stéphane Mertens.  
    Sweatshop Phase One Suzuki      171 laps   Classic
2  Nicholas Senechal / Lionel Frerad
    Baugy Motos Suzuki                   169 laps    Classic
3  Michel Simeon  / Fred Tacheny    
    Tacheny Suzuki                           164 laps   Post Classic          
4  Steve Clark / Steve Boam              
    Team SCERT Suzuki                   162 laps    Classic
5  Rob Morlon / Pedro Hernandez    
    BMW R1000RS                           161 laps   Classic
6  Bernard and Gaspard Demelenne  
    Yamaha FZR 1000                       160  laps   Post Classic
7  Bruno Weyland / Jerome Feyen    
    Moto-Martin Suzuki                    159 laps   Classic
8  Bert Goorts / Roland Lissens        
    BMW R1000 RS                          159 laps   Classic
9  Jean and Ronan Le Folch              
    Suzuki GSXR 750 Suzuki            158 Laps  Post Classic
10 Oliver Delagneau / Freddy Font    
     Kawasaki ZXR 750                      156 laps   Post Classic

It was great to be at the top of the podium again. Thanks to all team and sponsors for making that possible.

The seasons highlight, the Spa 4hrs, will be held over the weekend of 2nd/3rd July. We hope to see you all there, newly freed from the shackles of the European Superstate.  RB

Photographs by Kick47

Mettet 4 hrs: Mertens and Lindén

It's always lovely to get those two riding with each other again!
That 2000 WEC winning year was really something special; teamed with Warwick Nowland they scored six finishes from six starts and were rarely off the rostrum. Great memories.

Mertens and Haynes (Mettet 2015)

The Mettet 4 hrs will be run in two legs of 2 hrs, one on Saturday afternoon (not into the night) and the other on Sunday afternoon,
28/29 May.













This year, for the first time, the organisers have elected to run a class for later machines. It seems the later class is a "catch all" to enable anyone, with anything up to 1991 to ride.
It should be interesting, but effectively ends this race as a classic endurance event, which is a real pity as it was a useful race to keep the ECS honest. €550 entry fee at Mettet, €1450 entry fee at Spa!!

My feeling is that if a "post classic", 750cc up to 1991 had been adopted, it would have been true to the endurance classes at the time and would have been a great venue to bring out genuine endurance machines from the period.
Anyway, we shall do our best; despite being in the "support race". Sour grapes? A little.

In 2015 we were beaten into 2nd place by Team Force, and we really don't want that to happen again.

See you there!

RB

Mettet 2013 (archive picture made by Jacco Dijkhuizen)

3rd at Paul Ricard - a great start!

Ian Simpson and Peter Lindén made a great start on the job of defending the Team's European Classic Championship. After qualifying second against notably stronger competition they raced to a very hard fought third place in the 4hrs race. Team Force won and Neate Racing were second.

Against my expectation, the competition, in both depth and strength was up. Forty teams were on the line, many now with the security of two bikes, and almost all from the top ten had well known national champions, or ex- world champions aboard.

At the top, Greg Fastre was as fast as ever, fresh from his second place at last weekend's Le Mans 24hrs race. Sam and Steven Neate raced at a pace better than ever before. Mike Edwards and Mick Godfrey went superbly on Alf’s Kawasaki, Roadrunner (Dirk Brand and Henk van der Mark) and Taurus was very fast too.

The fifth to fifteenth region was stacked with talent as well… Cormac Conroy came back with a bang, joining Patrick Banfield on a pair of Kawasakis to finish a very creditable 7th, plus the Team Monex entry qualifying well in 6th and finished in 12th .

In the race, Lindén started well and settled in fourth for most of the first 40 minutes. The Neates led, followed by Force and Taurus. Monex lay fifth, until a stop and go ended their challenge.

There was excitement right from the warm-up, with team Force pitting after the sighting lap for adjustments and Cormac pitting with a slipping clutch.

After stop one, Sweatshop Phase One were in third, with Simpson pushing hard. Force were leading the Neates.

After stop two Sweatshop slotted into second place behind Force.

During rota three the pace car arrived in response to Mick Godfrey crashing Alf’s Kawasaki and the detached tank catching fire. The pace car intervention resulted in the top three closing on track to 8 seconds separation; Force, Neates and Sweatshop.

The latter part of the race was uneventful; with good pit work and faultless riding the team were able to secure third, some minute or so behind the fast charging Neates and two laps ahead of Nocki Classic Team in fourth.

 

Steve Boam and Steve Clarke had an awful race, chasing what turned out to be a dropped carb needle for at least half the race distance.

The sweatshop Phase One Team were content with getting points on the board (the team’s fourth consecutive ECS rostrum position) but will be working hard to be even more competitive at Spa.

Mettet 4 hrs next,  27^th - 29^th May…….RB

             

Valencia - good, Vallelunga - bad

Following an excellent two day test at Valencia, where all objectives were achieved and which involved Peter Lindén, Hugh Brasher and Ian Simpson, it all came to nought at Vallelunga!

Serious deliberations

Peter Lindén and Hugh Brasher qualified in third spot behind Team Taurus (44), with Giorgio Cantalupo and Sandro Caprara and the fast charging Team Scuderia Officine (333) with Samuele Sardi and Emiliano Bellucci.

Long queues for the scrutineering

After 25 minutes Peter Lindén led and built a 4 second lead by stop 1, at 43 minutes. Hugh Brasher returned to the track in an even better position, leading by 18 seconds.

At stop 2 and stop 3 the team held a steady 3rd position, well in touch with Scuderia Officine, who led.

















A mid-race stoppage, due to a bike fire on track, turned into an Italian farce. No pace car, nor parc fermé were available and all bikes returned to their pits awaiting instructions.
These can in town crier fashion with the organisers making the rules up on the hoof, contradicting each other and making no coherent sense... poor Segale suffered a 1 minute penalty for wiping the screen!


















Anyway, farce over, our race resumed... but not for long. Hugh Brasher pitted with 45 minutes remaining with a broken gearbox! It was a real shame, as Peter Lindén had scored the race fastest lap and absolute class record whilst chasing for the lead after the race stoppage and Hugh Brasher had delivered a 1 min. 54 sec lap and was displaying top form!

Fastest lap trophee

Next week off to Paul Ricard for round one of the FIM European Classic Series.

Ian Simpson and Peter Lindén will join forces on the Sweatshop Phase One bike... and this one really does count!

See you in the Provence next week.

RB

Golden memories, James Ellison on the No 3 Phase One bike