Having followed bike sport as a spectator and known of several guys around his local area who started racing, Tim decided if he didn't start racing soon he would never start, he was 23.
Tim had owned road bikes since 1984 and by 1987 was racing a Production class 250LC Yamaha. His first race was at the live air base RAF West Raynham in 1987, Tim recalls the scraping sound of a bike on its side only too well. No, our hapless hero had not fallen off but had to deal with a 9 bike pile-up on the first racing lap of his life, including being hit by an errant bike!
The 250LC was a brillant bike and took Tim to his first victory whist a novice, racing at Snetterton. In these days there were no seperate races for beginners, indeed no segregated practise sessions, no track days for the common man and even knee sliders were considered new technology. The bike saw 19 race victories in the early days before it was sold and racing postponed during 1989 due to mortgage rises and subsquent lack of funds.
Tim bought off-road bikes and continued having fun, even entering occassional 4 hour enduro races. Tim remembers the Bantam Racing clubs, 50 mile races at snetterton in 1991 on a standard NC30. He later aquired a KR1-S for the 1995 season. He entered many different clubs and raced Oulton, Mallory, Lydden, Tonfanau, Cadwell and Silverstone, never placed higher than 2nd.
For Tim, the 96 season was a dream come true. He turned to GP 125 Hondas and won in only his second meeting on the bike. That year saw Tim race two club championships, winning one and fiinshing second in the other. Tim was talked into entering the last round of the National GP125 at silverstone, where he came home 7th, first time out on slick tyres.
By 1999 Tim had won the Bemsee GP125 series, raced at National and British level, had pushed his win tally up considerably but he felt it time for a change.
The 2000 season saw Jones build a T955 Triumph triple and compete in the Bemsee Twins and Triple series, where the bike proved fragile but it did manage several more race victories and 5th overall.
2001 saw a team mate assist Tim to ride GSX-R's in france. This resulted in a huge ammount of driving, an 8th in the series and new tracks every meeting.
2002 and 2003 Tim is on a GP250 Honda, one of the best race bikes ever built. Second in the Bemsee series both years saw Tim notch up his 100th race victory and then his 125th. Retiring from regular sport at the end of 2003 has never been regretted.
2003 was the first year of MiniTwins. The series was popular from the off and Tim began sourcing or making parts and preparing bikes for riders in the class. Tim has always tutored new riders, supported and discussed technique and issues of established racers. The MiniTwins became an ideal development ground for Tim's experience and teaching skills to aid those eager to learn.
At the end of 2004 a friend invited Tim to ride in an endurance team on 600's and Tim helped the team to post several "fastest 600" starting places and also scored 4 wins from 5 starts. In 2005 Tim became the first rider to race a MiniTwin in a 6 hour endurance, where it won the class for production bikes.
2006 saw a change of rules in the 400 class at Bemsee sparking the imagination within Tim. He quickly built a 4 cylinder 2-stroke 400cc bike to compete in the new 400 superbike series. It was styled like the old 500GP bikes of the 90's. This notched many more race wins and finished 3rd overall.
The following year had no plans to race, after all he has retired a long time ago, 17 race wins ago to be precise. However the GP replica project of the previous year inspired him to build his best bike yet. A 990 MotoGP replica was entered for the Brands GP meeting of that year based on the engine and frame of a GSX-R 1000. Also that year a guest ride in the 675 challenge saw Tim appear on the top step twice more.
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Mike became interested in bikes after following some of the British privateers in the 500cc Grand Prix series back in 1995 and 1996. He passed his test in 1996 and bought a new CBR600FT which covered a few track days, about 10,000 miles and the odd incident or two before upgrading to another CBR600FX in 1999. Around this time Tim was instructing for the Motorcycle Folly on their track days and as Mike became a regular they got to know each other and became friends.
After completing a couple of training courses with Police Instructors and passing his Institute of Advanced Motorcyclists test Mike attended more track days and after a couple of minor spills began lending a hand instructing himself. After a day at the California SuperBike school it was suggested he try his hand at racing after putting in some reasonable times on a stock road bike.
With no mechanical knowledge Mike felt buying a bike from an established racing team the best idea so acquired Glen Richards' CBR600FY from the Sanyo Honda British SuperSport team. The bike proved to be a bit of a handful having a class leading 114 hp at the time despite an intimidating power curve that made it a challenge to ride. A crash first time out on a freezing February day at Lydden back in 2001 resulted in some damage but on the return visit another crash resulted in a broken collar bone causing Mike to miss the first round of the Bemsee Rookie 600s.
At his first round at Brands Hatch Mike lapped some 6 seconds slower than he had at the California SuperBike School on his road bike despite doing the one gear no brakes drill. Something was obviously amiss and on visiting a suspension expert was greeted with the comment "How do you manage to ride that without falling off?". Ah! Turns even Glen's then team mate, Chris Vermeulen, struggled with Glen's suspension settings. The first half of the season saw Mike coming back from injury and trying to rebuild the confidence that had eluded him since the accident.
Mike was finally starting to get the hang of the bike but his rapidly improving form was cut short with a nasty crash at Paddock Hill at Brands Hatch. The broken collar bone and fractured vertebra were nowhere near as painful as the bruised kidney although the hip shaped dent in the tank of the bike that cartwheeled in to him was a good reminder of the day that put an end to the 2001 season. An operation in late December fixed a couple of problems and despite being very weak Mike chose a move to the MRO Aprilia Challenge with some outing in the Bemsee SuperTwins for 2002.
On the new Aprilia RSV1000R for the first time the practice day before the first round at Brands Hatch saw Mike rudely taken our by an out of control Jeremy Goodall that left Mike with a nasty ankle injury after it got trapped between the two bikes. He still managed to compete that weekend but was struggling, both from fitness and the accident. The second round at SIlverstone was interesting with Tim Jones on his 250GP struggling to get past Mike on the Aprilia although that may have something more to do with his riding style than anything else ;-) Water on the track put paid to 2002 as six bikes in a row went down with Mike rolling awkwardly breaking his wrist quite badly.
The season was over almost before it began with Mike gaining a large metal plate and eight screws before finishing in the December with the plate being removed. Mike did manage a couple of track days during the season but the plate was inhibiting his wrist movements so it had to go. Around the same time Tim, who had been instructing on his SV650 for a couple of years, suggested people might be interested in a race series based around the bike and the pair set to work writing the rules, getting Dave Stewart at Bemsee to agree to run the class, phoning around to encourage people to join, arranging discounts on race parts for the new bikes, etc. in preparation for the 2003 season.
Mike opted to build an SV650 MiniTwins bike and also became the Chief Instructor for the Motorcycle Folly. Despite riding better than ever, often getting within 0.1 seconds of a podium finish, he invariably ran out of laps to make up the necessary places. An unfortunate start line incident at Cadwell Park in August saw a bike stall on the front of the grid and his excellent start meant riders in front were blocking the view until the last second. Mike avoided the rear of the bike but his knee took the full force of the incident as it hit the exhaust of the stationary bike. The result was a broken leg and a detached PCL (Posterior Cruciate Ligament). After an operation to install a long screw to fix the bone and attach the ligament a large rod was inserted through the leg to hold everything in place while it healed.
With a bike that wasn't being used whilst his leg healed Mike offered it to Two Wheels Only magazine to promote the class. They raced it at the final round at Brands Hatch and enjoyed it so much they opted to buy and race their own in the 2004 championships. Mike meanwhile sold the SV650 and purchased a rare Cagiva Raptor 650 to try and demonstrate the range of different bikes that were suitable for the series. Once again recovering from the injuries from the previous season Mike was unceremoniously knocked off once again at Surtees at the first round by Nigel Voyce, the exact same corner Jeremy Goodall had knocked him off the year before this time breaking his hand in the accident.
The rest of 2004 went true to form with Mike getting knocked off his bike at the Lydden Hill round in May, this time by Garry Stephens. Once again left unconscious the racing was over for the season after breaking his collar bone and vertebra once again. It was while receiving follow up treatment for these injuries that an orthopaedic consultant enquired when Mike suffered the compression fracture to his neck. "Erm, no idea" was the answer and nobody had ever picked up on it before. Oops!
With more time to watch the racing Mike noticed young rider Matt Bond putting in some excellent results on some under par machinery. After reluctantly choosing to take a little time off from racing to heal Mike offered Matt his bike for the last round of the championship and soon promised the young Bond a newer fuel injected bike to use for the 2005 season.
Matt convincingly won the 2005 MRO MiniTwins Championship even when Mike entered the former British SuperSport 600 Champion Mike 'Spike' Edwards with his Cagiva Raptor at the Silverstone round for another magazine article to promote the class. It provided great racing and confused the commentators no end as to which Mike Edwards helped start the series, which one was on the bike and which one owned the bike.
Towards the end of 2004 and throughout 2005 Mike and Dave Stewart, then the top man at Bemsee, had been working on a new series that was initially dubbed MiniTwins Pro. This was to find an outlet for tuned MiniTwins, perhaps pitted against stock SuperTwins. In the early days MiniTwins and SuperTwins had often raced together and both felt there was room for a new class to allow people more options when it came to tuning, etc. The competitive balance would be ensured by a power to weight ratio along with some flexible tuning rules for the smaller bikes. This was the forerunner to what would eventually become the Bemsee ThunderBike class that Mike wrote the rules for and organised for it's first year in 2006.
When options in the UK proved limited for Matt, i.e. R6 Cup or nothing, Mike arranged a ride for Matt in the European SuperStock 600 class in 2006. Unfortunately the deal fell through and MIST Suzuki Racing was born to allow Mike to take Matt and former MiniTwins racer, Chris Northover (who later became 2007 Bemsee MiniTwins Champion) to race in Europe. A successful first year on a 600 for Matt and Chris with Mike acting as Team Manager and Rider Coach, ably supported by Steve Jordan for suspension support. Matt finished in the points regularly with a high of 7th at Brands Hatch despite numerous factory supported bikes and riders in the class.
Being too old to race the 600 again in 2007 Matt moved up to the SuperStock 1000 class alongside factory bikes from Alstare, Xerox Ducati and several others. A steep learning curve but Matt proved more than capable putting in times at the Brands Hatch WSB round that would have put him 15th in the British SuperStock class just ahlf way through his first season on the bike. A pre-season test in early 2008 saw Matt lead BSB regular Leon Haslam for 12 laps of Almeria circuit and finishing the 80 km race just 0.5 seconds behind. Unfortunately the season did not live up to expectations after Matt was hurt at the second round and knocked off in the third round causing a shoulder injury that was to plague him for the remainder of the season.
Despite the injury and some confidence sapping weather conditions, and resulting crashes, at Donington Matt impressed at Brands Hatch. His time on a damp but drying track riding for the first time on intermediate tyres was just 0.06 seconds behind the third place podium position from the British SuperStock round on the same circuit earlier in the year when the track was dry. More impressive performances followed, particularly lapping faster than British SuperStock podium regular Peter Hickman who was a wild card at the final few rounds.
From not being able to adjust his own chain when he started racing in 2001 Mike has become adept at building and setting up suspension, stripping engines, setting up kit electronics and coaching riders at World level. MIST Suzuki Racing has grown to become the largest British team in the World SuperBike paddock for much of the last three years with Mike now sought after for rider advice and training despite not having ridden a bike of any kind since 2005 (unless setting one up on the dyno counts).
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