A road racing summer for The Royal Navy

Storyline: Motorsport

The Royal Navy Road Racing team took to the most northerly circuit on the No Limits racing calendar in Darlington, Croft Circuit.

PO Paul Lewis gave his account on the weekends events.

'The weekend started with practice on the Friday, which was well needed for the team with this being the first time riding this track for many of team, and the first time riding a bike in almost year for myself, with my last outing being at Brands Hatch last year.

The Saturday started off with qualifying for Liam on his Kawasaki 600 and Simon on his Suzuki 600, Simon qualified in 33rd place and Liam 36th overall. It was then the turn of CB500s to qualify with Harry taking 7th, Nat 38th, and myself 37th overall. 

It was then on to the first race starting with the Newcomer 600 & Pre injection 600, with Liam finishing 30th and Simon finishing in 31st. The CB500 race then followed with Harry finishing 7th, Nat after a blinding start, finished 37th, myself 36th. That completed the days racing for the team.

Moving onto Sunday it was a late start with no racing taking place till the afternoon. Once again, the 600s were out first, with some close battling going on between the two teammates. Liam finished in 29th and Simon in 32nd.

It was then the turn on the CB500’s with Nat getting another blinding start making a few places and enjoying a close battle with another rider, managing to hold him off achieving a personal best time and finishing in 36th. Harry set off and was pushing hard and battling for 3rd, but unfortunately ended up losing grip and crashing out. Myself, I had a bad start but managed to make my places back up finishing the race in 35th.

With the final races taking place it was again the turn of the 600s to take to the track for the last time this weekend. The two teammates found themselves head to head once again, amongst other riders, with Liam finishing 29th overall and 20th in class. Simon finished 30th overall and 10th in class.

The CBs were up next for their final race with myself changing my rear shocks for some better ones that our honorary team member Jon kindly let me borrow, after finding out my port one was leaking. Nat once again got a good start and had a good battle through most of race and achieved another personal best time finishing the final race in 32nd.

Harry battled hard again near the front to finish the race in 8th. With my borrowed shocks it felt like a new bike, I set a personal best time taking off just over 5 seconds from my previous best time. But unfortunately, due to a jump start I was awarded a DNF.

We had probably the best weather Croft has seen in recent years and we thoroughly enjoyed the down-time between races with BBQs and sunbathing.

Next up for the team is Brands Hatch GP in Kent, a new circuit for some team members.'