Cannon Motorsports Season Review

"Well, it seems another race year has come and gone and once again developing a new combination had its highs and lows We started the year full of hope that the winter upgrades would net good results.

The Thunderball and Main Event were good but both showed we needed more testing time if we were going to make the long haul to Hockenhiem. So off we went to the Jap Show to do just that however it would be a short lived test as we blackend a crank due to unfortunate unforseen circumstances. This however made my mind up that Hockenheim was a non starter till we could get a grip on what was going on.

We had a full tear down and rebuild with some more updates and we were ready to test once again. The next event was the Bug Jam and thanks to Darren and Santa Pod for allowing us to get some valuble test time. This was the 1st time we made 4 passes in one day and the oil updates were working superb and methinks have actually cracked our issues ???

Although we didn't have any fast times we were consistent and damage free and as we all know to tune a bike it first has to live. Neil and the boys had the fueling somewhere near and the crank was good and the drive belts were staying on and we actually thought we are going forward which was pushing good for the Euro Finals as due to work commitments for both me and the team was going to be the next event and boy did it come round fast!

Watching the racing showed that although we were upping our game the rest of the field was really upping theirs too, we arrived at the European Finals with an uphill task just to qualify and with some new and returning faces in the field it was going to be hard but fun.

Once again we made the test and all the qualifying passes lowering our european best by 2 tenths but we were spectators on race day due to the magnificent bump spot of 6.77! The Supertwin top fuel class really is the class of the year for me with the most exciting close racing and we are proud to be a team campainging against the best bunch of guys and teams.

We left the track happy the bike was running great but we needed to find out why things just weren't reacting as they should. Well this is where the rider has to hold up his hand and say that we were having problems keeping the throttle pinned to the stop when moving on the bike to keep it straight, so back in the workshop again machining a new quick action throttle for our last event the National Finals.

We arrived early to great weather to get the bike ready for testing and spent all day friday getting everything perfect for saturday as we would have 3 rounds of qualifying. Saturday dawns and Topfuel is called to the lanes and boy were we ready, 7.09 @ 191 out of the van and pb for this bike and what's more it only needed fuel and oil and was ready to go next round.

The new throttle was doing its job and next round again we ran good with a 7.13 but my creeping throttle was occuring again as moving on the bike made a bigger percentage closure with the quicker acting throttle which only got worse round 3 with a 7.28 and ended up in the number 3 spot (which against the 4 cylinder bikes we were quite happy to take).

Sunday moring dawned and 1st round we were againt our good friend Steve Carey who had been onfire this year running in the 6.5s but was having some issues at this event. It was time to race which is something I've not done for some time, I cut a great light and went straight down the track to a 1st round win with Steve having some issues but a win is a win.

We then had to face Ian King on his fantastic new bike, me and Ian go back years to Streetbike and believe me I was up for this as Ian was nearly 8 tenths quicker and he would have got some stick had he lost... I really enjoy racing and this fantastic race was like a final for me, we staged and I convincingly beat Ian on the tree (hmmmm, Ed!) showing I did my job but that's were it stopped as Ian raced down the track with a fine low 6 sec pass so he was making sure there was no winter of Mickey taking to come.

When back in the pits I reflected on the year and the event and the fact we qualified 3 rounds and raced 2 eliminations and all we did was between round maintainence was very pleasing. Once again the development has moved forward, the bike has no damage, we have ended the year with a new personal best time so all in all a good year.

Finally I wouldd like to take this opportunity to thank Lucas Oils for their fantastic product and support in keeping the hardest working Topfuel twin on track, also my great hardworking super team who keep the whole deal running, Santa Pod for the track time, all the photographers and race fans along with all the race reports and info on Eurodragster, Kingracing.com & Dragbike.com for reporting on us and look forward to next year, bring it on!!!!