Lapping up race bike action

Reality, though, was somewhat different.

I've been lucky enough to have road-tested dozens of the fastest, meatiest superbikes for articles in the Oxford Mail's motoring pages, so mounting a Honda CB500 - the workhorse and commuter produced by the Japanese biking giant - should be no great challenge.

What I was not prepared for was the combination of a bike I had never ridden before, a track I did not know and the awe-inspiring talent of my competitors.

No, I did not claim the glory of pole position at Sunday's Powerbike International Raceday event, the last round of the season. I found myself languishing on the back row of the starting grid, one row behind the Abingdon Motorcycles-sponsored Nick Russell. My only saving grace was that I was not tail-end Charlie.

The day began just after dawn on a frosty morning. I signed on at race control and then went in search of my guest bike, supplied by Honda for reckless journalists like myself to get a feel for the two-year-old formula.

The idea of pitching identical production bikes against one another is to try to produce Britain's biking stars of tomorrow. A couple of shining examples to emerge from last year's national cup were 16-year-old James Toseland and this year's championship winner Gordon Blackley - names to watch out for in the future.

Scott Grimsdall, who prepared my bike, led me through the complex paperwork and scrutineering, in which both the bike and my leathers and helmet were checked.

Then it was practice. The 20-minute session was a shock to the system. The first time I had fired up the bike was to ride it the 100 yards to the entrance to the track. Before the beads of cold sweat could form on my forehead, we were flagged out on to the track. I took it easy the first few laps. Warm the tyres and find out which way the road goes, I thought.

And the Hampshire circuit is not an easy track to learn. It is an old airfield, flat as a pancake, and on the faster back section there are literally no landmarks to give you a clue as to just how tight the ultra-fast sweeping bends really are. There are no raised kerbs: the rough and bumpy Tarmac just disappears into a sea of grass.

Here goes. Time to get a decent time in the bag and, hopefully, a good place on the grid. That was when the fast boys went past.

You don't know they are coming. No mirrors, just trackside marshals waving a blue warning flag as you approach their post.

I just couldn't believe how quickly the other riders went past me. They were in a different league.

I was still trying to find braking points at the chicanes, the right gears for the various corners, watching the rev counter peak at about 10,000 revs, watching marshals, the track...

Things were getting a bit hectic. Then, in a flash, the session ended. With my head hung low, I went to find my grid position. It was 26th out of 27 starters.

And I'd been trying really hard - hanging off the bike at crazy angles, leaving braking really late, snapping open the throttle as soon as possible and hitting top speeds of more than 140mph on the straight. After all that I had only managed a time of 1min 47.3secs - or an average speed of 78.97mph.

It was a big "only", too. Dominic Davis, riding for Carbontek International, took the Newcomers Cup pole with a time of 1min 33secs at a screaming average speed of 91mph.

I was just grateful that my tense wait for the race was short. Ours was the first of the afternoon. I shut my black visor to hide my blushes and lined up at the back of the grid.

The lights went green. I let the clutch slip for a clean getaway. Others in front had front wheels clawing the air, but by the first corner a banging of elbows soon sorted out the men from the boys. Once we got safely through Campbell, the right-hander, I flicked the bike over on to its other side for Cobb. You've just got to get this right to get the momentum through the sweeping Segrave. As I fed on the power, changing up half-way through the corner, the front wheel started lifting. I shifted my weight further forward ready for the double-apex Noble.

Goodwood now loomed. The top riders take this flat out at about 140mph.

If you get this right and keep going through Church, the all-important sweep through Brooklands can push speeds up to 155mph or so on the main straight. But the joys of this chin-on-the-tank blast are tempered by the 30mph Club chicane ahead.

It pays to scrub off enough speed because high, painted and slippery kerbs wait for the unwary. I locked up the back wheel a few times here - not a good idea when you really should be turning in. Then it's full throttle and a blur of faces behind the pit wall.

By lap eight of the scheduled ten, I was just beginning to find the right racing line and my confidence was building in the road-going tyres. That's when the fast guys came up behind me. The blue flags waved, so I moved off the racing line and three went past - two on one side and one the other - leaning over at angles that defied the laws of gravity and at around 100mph.

Keeping out of their way wrecked my lap time. Once the momentum goes it takes ages to build up speed again. But with just over a lap left and my nearest rival well out of reach, it didn't really matter.

The chequered flag flashed past in a blink of an eye and it was all over.

My dream hadn't come true. I wasn't to be a bike racing star of tomorrow. But I comforted myself with three achievements.

One, I brought the bike - and myself - back in one piece.

Two, during the race my fastest lap had lopped five seconds off my best practice time.

And lastly, I managed to scrape my nylon knee-sliders while cornering. I had to do this because my son threatened never to speak to me again if I returned without these battle scars.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.