All's well that ends well, behind the scenes at the Isle of Man Classic TT
The story from John Barton's team
Rupert Murden
Now this may sound a bit like yesterday's news, but it is really interesting to hear what it is like to actually prepare a bike and race it in on the Isle of Man - so here is a story about John Barton's Formula 1 Classic TT race this year from behind the scenes...
You could say it was a case of "All's well that ends well".
At times during practice week life got very hectic with problems arising after every practice session. The perennial TT problem is one of time, or rather lack of it! When things go wrong you realise only too well that, realistically, you have only a few working hours to resolve issues before the bike's due back out for another practice. The result is often a fix that although "safe" could never be classified as an engineering solution.
John Barton on his Wemoto sponsored bike, No.4
Running on empty
However, apart from bits falling off or breaking (all of which we managed to overcome) the BIG issue was would the bike manage two laps on a tankful at racing speeds. The Kawasaki seemed to be running on air after every two lap practice. There was really little alternative, we had to jet down and when that didn't work, jet down again! A dicey business considering the engine's state of tune and the prolonged wide open throttle for mile after mile.
In the end, the decision was taken to "blow" the tank - BIG MISTAKE - the sudden injection of compressed air resulted in exposing a large crack in the tank which had previously been repaired and painted over. Our attempts to heal the wound sadly didn't work and a trip to Ramsey on the morning of race day was required to get the tank professionally welded. Phil Boal did a great job just in time to make the scrutineering deadline.
For John the race was, thankfully, largely uneventful. We knew before the off that Michael Dunlop and Conor Cummins were out of our league. They were riding brand new machines of dubious classic heritage producing something like 160bhp at the rear wheel. On Slick Bass's dyno our bike mustered just over 130bhp which we were very happy with (the engine that was fitted to the bike when we bought it showed over 140bhp but we had no idea of it's mileage so with
Wemoto's
assistance in sourcing engine parts worldwide, Slick managed to build a fresh engine with new internals but with different cams and slightly softer tune).
Creeping up the leaderboard
For us it was a question of finishing - if John crossed the line the chances were that we would be "in the mix". And that's pretty much how the race developed; we were running in the top ten after a lap, but as the race wore on other fancied riders fell by the wayside and John crept up the leaderboard. With a lap to go John was in a secure fourth place, too far in front to be troubled from behind and too far behind to challenge for the podium. If at the start of practice week anyone had said that we would finish fourth, we would have grabbed it with both hands!
With so many young gun TT riders on really trick kit John did very well on a bike that was a genuine period piece which had last raced in 1997 - not at all bad!!
We paid £5,000.00 for the bike back in the winter. On top of that we replaced the wheels with standard Kawasaki items, new discs, pads, levers, bars, battery, and engine internals courtesy of
Wemoto and of course an engine rebuild. Competitive racing doesn't come any cheaper than that!!
Strange but true
However, what is a little odd is that John's race speed was, as expected, way up on practice (best lap of over 116mph) but his fuel consumption was DOWN - we finished with 2.5 litres in the tank and on the face of it the plugs had the same colouring as when we started practice - yet we were two jet sizes smaller! Never mind, who cares? WE FINISHED!!!
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