Motorcycle decals Honda Phase one ready for the 2007 Endurance Race season.

NEWSLETTER 129

Warwick Nowland - Glen Richards - Didier van Keymeulen.

Our fastest team ever ?

Firstly, welcome back to what will undoubtedly be a great season.

Straight away I want to thank our returning sponsors, our new sponsors and all who support the team with effort, finance or products. Together, 2007 is going to be good!

CURRENT NEWS

Its our 23rd season and this year we will be on Yamaha R1’s again, this time with the brand new 2007 model! On paper, the bike looks to be improved in several key areas, most notably the 4-valve per cylinder engine, which we hope will return significantly better fuel consumption without sacrificing power and the altered swinging arm pivot for improved drive. Our job will be to turn the paper potential into a race winning machine.! The rider line-up is probably the fastest since 2003 and maybe the fastest ever. We set out to significantly improve the average speed of our rider line-up, following our third place finish in the 2006 championship and that has been achieved, albeit with some nail biting moments waiting for the different increments to be put into place.

Warwick must now be one of the most experienced riders currently in the sport, starting his world endurance career with the team at Spa in 1998 (4th) and riding pretty solidly in the championship since then. Both Didier and Glen have significantly less endurance experience, (although both have competed in 24 hrs races) but they more than make up for this in sheer speed and track time in high level competition. Didier has competed in world superstock and SS600 championships winning the 2005 superstock championship for Yamaha and Glen for 5 years in BSB. Glen’s heroic Hawk Kawasaki rides on the 750 against the new 1000s being both successful and memorable.

Added to that, the pit-team is amongst the best ever. Most of the 2007 key team members are seasoned hands, having spent a number of years gaining race experience within the team. In addition, half a dozen ‘newbies’ will also contribute significantly. The future training opportunities with the team will be reduced this season following the total focus on winning and therefore the resultant discontinuation of the highly successful SEA team after 5 seasons.

SHELL ENDURANCE ACADEMY

Personally I am sad about having to stop the academy, but our human resources are limited – we should be proud of the work that the team did, it was never dull running simultaneous strategies and pit stops – up to 50 in a single event…
We introduced more than 10 new young riders to the sport, including – Dubelski, Rohtlaan, Hogan, Jessopp, Verboven and Fincher, to name just some, all benefiting. Plus the young mechanics and tyremen and the rest of the crew that contributed to the most successful reliability record in memory – only one DNF in 5 seasons of endurance and that was a crash. They all played their part and hopefully gained valuable experience as well.

For the record, the team finished in the top ten of the championship in four of the five years and was eleventh in the other. Perhaps one day we can resurrect the idea, but for now we need to chase the championship, undiverted

THE BIKES

The 07 Phase One racebikes are all new but based heavily on the 06 machines. The 07 model has a completely revised 4-valve head planted on what is essentially a 04/06 bottom end. That combination should form a very good basis for a competitive and reliable engine. The team are hoping to be able to coax a further 10% fuel consumption gain to bring it fully in line with the Suzukis which currently enjoy a consumption advantage. Power should be improved and certainly is on the standard bike (up 8 BHP, like for like with the 06 model.) which should give 165 BHP for the teams 24 hrs spec and 185 BHP for Suzuka, Albacete and Qatar.

There are a number of other developments that could prove beneficial, most notably the raised swinging arm pivot which should improve dr