I’m Back!

Well it’s quicker than first thought as I was quite enjoying the time I’ve had outside of racing, I will be back on a classic sidecar outfit at Brands Hatch on 10th July!

I wasn’t planning on returning to sidecar racing at all for the rest of the season, however I have been given a brilliant oppourtunity by my boss Brian Gray to passenger him on his 830cc Honda outfit. Unfortunately we are unable to take part (at the moment) in Saturday’s racing due to a shortage off staff at work but hope to have a good run on the Sunday.

I don’t know at the moment if this will be a permenant ride for me as Brian is committed to doing the British Eastern Airways F1 sidecar championship, but I’m looking forward to getting back out on a bike again.

Now I’m in a happy place again with my racing, I shall be keeping you lot updated on a regular basis and want to thank you again for your continued support.

Happy and Smiling Vics

Update

Hi folks,

Firstly I must apologise for my lack of posts recently. We went to Mallory Park at the end of March and had four 3rds, we had a bit of a problem with the oil pressure which turned out to be a faulty gague in the end. We then travelled to Pembrey for round 2 of the CRMC championship where the problems hit, we had a 3rd in the first race and was just starting to get to grips with the bike again in the 2nd race when the primary drive chain decided to snap and shattered the pearson drive casing, that was game over for us. We had problems in getting it ready for Anglesey and unfortunately didnt go.

With the events that have happened over the last couple of months, both on and off the track, I have now decided to have a break from sidecar racing. This won’t be a permenant thing, but for the time being I have decided to concentrate on other things.

The next mission is to buy a little MT125 which I am going to have a look at this weekend and do a couple of meetings on that towards the end of the year.

I would just like to thank everyone at www.roadracingsupporters.com for their continued support and hope that will continue on my two wheeled journey, I would also like to thank everyone at Nevis marketing for their sponsorship for this season and also Steve at Barton Mills for his support with Rock Oil.

I am truly looking forward to getting out on a solo and hope that I can continue to do well.

Watch this space!

Vics

Mallory Park 26/27th March: Latest

Well the season’s finally under way and Teameddys had a very satisfactory start to this season’s Championship battle .  Eddy and Vicky opened their 2011 account with two podium finishes in the opening pair of races this afternoon.

Vicky commented afterwards in typical style ” Had two 3rds today at Mallory, bloody close racing out there. A few little changes to do before tomorrow.”

Update

Hello boys and girls!

Got just about enough money for the new leathers, they will be ready for a fitting all being well next week, which is exciting. Thank you very much to everyone who donated

On the actual racing front the engine is back from Reg Pattern’s hopefully it will be quicker than last years one, we’ll soon find out. The CRMC season kicks off in two weeks time at Mallory and I absolutely cannot wait.

Me and Ed went to the Isle of Man a couple of weekends ago to get some laps in. I was really glad we went in the end, gave me loads of confidence knowing I know most of the track now, there’s just a couple of sections that I need to go over with another passenger, these being the Laurel Bank section and Ginger Hall to Ramsey, everything just looks the same, which I think thats why Im struggling.

I’ll try and keep everyone updated on here as to what’s going on a bit better, but failing that, for the latest Team Eddy’s news you can look on our website www.teameddys.co.uk

Over and Out

Sponsorship Appeal…

Hi guys and girls.

Desperately in need of a new set of leathers, old ones won’t even pass scrutineering now.

I’m looking for about £700 but anything anyone can give would be a huge help. If you would like to donate please send payment via paypal to teameddys@yahoo.co.uk or alternatively send me a cheque, you can do this by emailing me and I will send you my address.

Any sponsorship would be a massive help, www.roadracingsupporters.com will be going on the back of my leathers, but sure we could squeeze something else on there if a substanstial payment was made.

Thanks again.

Vics

The New Year

Crikey! Well what a year 2010 was. Lots of highs and lows on the racing front, doing so well at the start of the season, three lap records, topping the championship and then the crash in Belgium, the break downs and the unfortunate miss haps. Still, we finished second in the championship, won Race of the Year and came away with sidecars racers of the year.

Plans for next year are already under way, we are all up for taking part in the Classic Racing Motorcycle Championship again, and are abolsutely on a mission to win the championship next year, it’s not going to be an easy task though. As you probably already know, Ed is returning to the TT in 2011, this time with me as his passenger, this is what I’m most looking forward to this season, without a doubt. We will do a few meetings on the formula 2 (which is now taking shape quite nicely) early on in the season to make sure we are both comfortable with the bike.

My training has already begun with a few weights and monkey grip things, also I’m on a get fit campaign, this has begun with the Wii Fit i got for christmas, once I’m confident I can run a couple of miles without coming close to death then I’ll join a gym, but until that point……

I’ve also been busy watching on board laps of the TT from various people, the Mick Boddice and Dave Wells lap seems to have been the most helpful so far. I have a big long list of what to do passenger wise round the TT, and I just about know my way round now, so I’ll start to concentrate on the niggley bits now.

Christmas and New Year seems to have flown by and it’s scary to think that the season starts in just over 3 months time.

I hope you all had a very good Christmas and New Year and hope to catch up with some of you as the season progresses.

Cheers

Vics

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Happy Christmas everybody and hope you all have a good New Year.

From myself and everyone at Team Eddy’s

Mallory Park Sidecar Festival

For the last meeting of the year Team Eddy’s travelled to Mallory Park for the annual International Sidecar Festival. We were supposed to be taking the Formula 2 and the classic, but due to the mad rush getting the 1040cc engine back in the classic we decided against the F2.

We arrived at Mallory park late on friday night to find the paddock absolutely rammed, i’d not seen this many sidecars at the festival in years!

We woke up Saturday morning to cold, damp, miserable weather which was to be expected at Mallory at this time of year. we got signed on and scrutineered and was all set to go. We went out in qualifying and things didn’t go all that well. We had hardly any bottom end power and I couldn’t get the wheel spinning enough to get us out of the corners. We qualified in a disappointing 4th, we were quite upset with this to be honest given that we are the current CRMC lap record holders.

We didn’t have the correct jets for the 1040 engine, which was why are bottom end power was so crap, we just had to make do with what we had. The first race didn’t go exactly to plan either, we got a dreadful start and ended up about half way down the field, we followed Ian Mcghee and Roger Holmes through Edwina’s and into the esses. Roger fell out at the esses and we only just missed him, this cause Ian to run head first into the tyre wall and the red flags came out. It was a horrible accident to witness but thankfully the pair of them were ok apart from a couple of broken bones. The race was re started and we got the same crap start, we now had a lot of catching up to do…. we were making our way through the field quite nicely and just as we started to get in a bit of a rhythm oil pissed out of the breather all over me and my handles. Ed hadn’t noticed and I was slipping about all over the place at one point at Gerrard’s my legs were dangling and I just managed to pull myself back in, I’d now had enough so tapped Ed but he kept on going, so I carried on slipping and sliding for another four laps before we took the chequered flag in third place. I gave Ed a bollocking when we got to Park Ferme, put it this way Icertainly didn’t mince my words about sliping and sliding for four laps!!!! We got on the podium and received a lovely trophy each so all was not lost.

The next race was pretty much the same as the first one only without the oil. we got a terrible start again and had to fight our way through the field. this time, a bit more gracefully though!

Sunday brought more miserable cold weather but we had been working on the bike on saturday night in hope that we could get a better start. The bottom end gremlins seemed to have almost disappeared on the warm up lap so I was very pleased. We lined up on the grid for the race, Ed knocked it into gear when the lights came on and our bike was trying to go, Ed managed to hold it on the brakes until the lights went out but my hand went straight up. I knew the clutch had gone and knew we wouldn’t be getting off the line in a hurry and wanted to alert the ten or eleven bikes behind us. We eventually got going after the entire field had passed us and now we had a lot of catching up to do. We made our way through the field, creating gaps if there wasn’t one there! I had my work cut out too, I knew we would have no drive coming out of the corners as we didn’t have a clutch so I was trying to get the back wheel spinning up everywhere, I was bloody knackered by the end of it. We took the chequered flag in fourth place and were both quite pleased given the circumstances.

For the last race of the day we did a little bit ore tweaking to see if we could try and get the clutch to hold out for another ten laps, it was a risk, but one that we felt we had to take. we got off the line perfectly this time and I thought we were going to have a good race with the front runners….. we almost did. Coming into the hairpin on the second lap I noticed Ed missing a lot of gears and again we had no drive coming out of the corners, the clutch hadn’t held out. We dropped back from the front runners and had a lonely race to finish in third place.

We were both fairly content with how the weekend had gone, it’d have been nice to have a few battles but you can win them all. I received a lovely trophy for highest placed female over the weekend which was pleasing.

2011 preparations have already started so I’ll keep you all updated over the winter.

Vics

Cadwell Park CRMC Rnd 8

This was our last CRMC meeting of the year and what an unbelieveable year it has been!

I was looking forward to Cadwell after a disasterous Snetterton and was hoping that we might have a trouble free weekend with a bit of good luck thrown in.

Me and Ed both like Cadwell, in fact that’s an understatement, we both love Cadwell. The weather was dry, but cold and cloudy, it didn’t matter though cos I had a good feeling about the days events.

We went out in practice and got going straight away, we had a lot of catching up to do. Our braking problems seemed to have vanished and for the first time in a couple of months we were enjoying being back out on the bike again. Practice went really really well, Mogli thought we were the fastest out there so it was good news all round. We had a long wait now until our first race, in fact our only race of the day.

We were starting from the front row for the race, not pole but good enough. We got off to a reasonable start but Matt Kingsmill had got the better of us, we followed him round and right through the gooseneck where we were both really on our limit, we got the better of Matt on the brakes into Mansfield. We knew we were quick through the woodland section and pulled out on Matt quite a lot. After two laps Matt had disappeared and we had a lonely race to the chequered flag.

We were both dead chuffed with our results especially after such a crap string of results in previous weeks. I was so chuffed I practically ran to the bar   We had a good night on Saturday in the bar, there was a band on who were absolutely top notch. I ended up dancing on a table spilling every drink going including my own! I expected to get a bollocking from Ed who was watching closely but by the end of the night he was up dancing himself!!!!

Sunday was going to be a busy day for us. We were the first race of the day which was a shock for us as it was an early start. We were on pole for this race which was good, not that it makes too much of a difference at Cadwell cos it’s such a long run to the first corner. We didn’t get a very good start again and was behind Matt and John Perkins this time. We got Matt fairly quickly but it took us a little longer to get Perky. Again though we did him on the brakes going into mansfield…. ive never braked that hard into there, the back wheel was squirming all over the place and when we did get into the corner the chair must’ve been 2 and a half foot in the air…. shit! Ed was on a mission now to get away from Perky and we had another lap of squirming all over the place and getting the front wheel off the ground going over the mountain. We managed to pull out on Perky on the third lap so I squeezed Ed to knock it off and again we had a lonely race to the finish.

Race of the Year was probably the least exciting race of the weekend for us. We led from the start and didn’t see anyone all race… i didnt mind though as I could relax a little bit and save my arms.

The last race of the weekend was the handicap race. We won that last year and it’s always exciting. We had an impossible task ahead of us though as we were starting 2 minutes and 5 seconds behind the first couple of bikes. Not to worry though we were going to give it a fair old go. We passed Colin Lewis who had started a second in front of us on the second lap going into the esses before the mountain, we always managed to pass a couple more bikes here on the same lap and I actually thought we might be in with a shout. However, that was to be short lived… we got to Hall Bends and oily water started to pee out everywhere, we had done a head gasket so pulled into the pit lane and the was weekend over for us.

Despite doing a head gasket, I was chuffed to bits with how are weekend had gone, we had a new personal best round Cadwell and some fantastic results. Unfortunateley our results over the weekend weren’t enough to clinch the title and we lost out by one point.

We will be at the Festival of Sidecars at mallory Park on October 30th/31st if anyone fancies it. We’ll be out the F2 and the classic so it’d be well worth a trip down.

Vics

Team Eddy’s Website

Is now up and running… let me know what you think…

www.teameddys.co.uk