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RG Racers: Stuart Jones
Stuart raced a lot of stuff, including a few stints aboard his Spondon RG500, so he's in!
(Spondon RG500 racer late in life)
Stuart's story:
Ok not really much to say about my 500 racing, did two meetings on the Spondon after 8 years away from the track.
Pic 1: Ktm125 EXC, first MX bike with a disc brake. Click to enlarge pix!
My history, started off back in early 80s racing MX in South Africa, came back to UK in 1986. After a lot of hassle trying to buy an NS400R from the Honda dealer where I lived in south Wales who just kept trying to sell me the newly released CBR600, I stumbled across an RG500 in the Suzuki dealer down the road.
From this, it basically lead to starting racing an RGV250 in 93. In 94 I came across a certain guy called Chris Walker who was just starting a year after me-- we had the most memorable race of my career, swapping the lead every lap once or twice for the whole race until he beat me by about half a wheel length at my Local track, Pembrey.
'95 saw me win the Formula 400 class on the RGV and in 96 I won the open 250 class on a 1991 TZ250B, both with North Gloucester Motorcycle racing club.
Pic 2 Leading into first corner Pembrey, 1996
So hey lets go do the National championship Supercup, oh dear-- brought back down to earth big style, struggled to qualify at some rounds, then got lapped by the two front runners at Donnington in a 25 lap race! Then they got wild card rides at the GP and Max Biaggi lapped them! I could make people look silly on their Fireblades at a track day but could be made to look like a rookie by the top guys!!!
Got a 96 RS250 Honda in 99 and rode for Scotland in the Celtic match races, ended up the fastest “scotsman” and, for the first time in my life, went home with money in my pocket after winning the National Prince of Pembrey race in the wet.
2000 saw me drop back to production 250 with a VJ23 RGV, should have won the Scottish championships but politics saw me pull out as it was like racing with a bunch of kids, shame really as there were some good guys there. The next couple of years were probably my best doing the New ERA superclub championships on the RGV, top club championship in the UK. Nearly won it is 2002 but couple of issues made me miss by a very small margin. Went back to a 2000 RS250 honda for a couple of years with some podiums in the Superclub before having to retire at the end on 2004 due to a woman wanting half of what I owned.
Pic 3 winners enclosure Castle Coombe
2002
Ok so this is where the RG500s came back into my life. After having to sell all my bikes to pay for the divorce, I managed to get back on my feet and bought a pepsi RG500 in 2007, then I found an RGV250 cylindered RGV500 to play on.
Was about to start doing trackdays and possibly getting back to racing when a part finished Spondon RG500 came up. This had to be bought as I really wanted to have one of these prior to starting racing on the RGV. This took a couple of years to finish and did a track day in 2012 at Cadwell Park, and this is where I fell in love with the bike. I had heard stories of Spondon RG500s being a handful, not handling, wheelying uncontrollably etc, but no this thing was awesome and it was like an overweight TZ250. Ok, I spent a lot of time and effort on getting top quality suspension properly set up and the chassis sorted, but did not expect it to be so good at first outing.
Pic 4 First outing on Spondon Cadwell 2012
This was built as a road and race bike so still had an MOT, but once I did the upgrade to the motor with Marenello Disc valves, TMX35 carbs and tuned the bike properly, I decided to was way too mental for the road and made it a full race bike.
I then had a bike that if weighed like the last of the GP500s were weighed (i.e. wet but with no tank was 132kg and it was making 120hp on the dyno. (See attached curve.) But- and this is a big BUT- it ran so smoothly it was like a fourstroke, as confirmed when friend of mine Danny Imberg tested it, very tractable but fast.
Pic 5 road worthy 120hp monster
So lets go racing, problem is my license had expired and needed to do the training to get a new one, lets buy a nice orange vest again.
Turned up to Knockhill to do the training to find the guy doing the classroom stuff was the Clerk of the course that back in 2000 I had been a little rude to when I lost the plot with the Scottish championship guys and told him where to shove the Scottish championship 0-)
Luckily, I don’t think he remembered me Then out on track to do the test to be confronted with assessors which were a guy that I used to race against on the RGV that could not stay with me and a guy that I had had major scraps with when I had the 96 RS250. The two of them were like what are you doing here?????
I only did one track day and couple of track sessions in the Mallory festival of a thousand bikes before racing for the first time. Knew I was going to be slow but luckily I had a bike that made a slow fat old man look quite quick straight away. The TSGP series was my choice as it allows anything two stroke so I would be up against everything from very well sorted TZ350s, modern 250s and RGV’s etc. Track was my favorite, Donnington, where I had actually held the formula 400 lap record in 2002 of 1.18.4. Cant remember exactly where I qualified but it was third row, laptimes were slow with a mid 1.24, but as I had not raced for 8 years that was expected. As always from my past got amazing start, think it comes from the MX racing, lead into the first corner to be then passed by loads of bikes going down Craners as my brain was still in trackday /road type mode. Think I ended up 7th, shame all results sheets are back in Scotland.
Next race was raining and had issues with getting from brakes to work properly after changing wheels so missed the race. Sunday was the same with dry then wet the dry etc. had some decent results with the best being 5th I believe.
Pic 6 Donnington morning practice, forgot my orange vest !
2013 was my last race meeting before coming to Saudi. Again, Donnington with TSGP and again it was a wet/dry weekend with me again missing a race because I could not get the front brake to work after changing wheels. Think I was fifth in the first Saturday race, missed the second, then had a 7th from the back of the grid on Sunday morning.
Things eventually gelled for the final race on Sunday, and this is the one I remember in detail. Quite a decent field comprising of everything from a TZ750 to late model TZ250s, Andy Sawford (GP wildcard rider from 2000) was out on a very well sorted TZ250A. Track was drying and if I had not had issues with changing wheels on the Saturday I would have been on slicks, turns out everyone else had made the same bad decision and a sighting lap saw everyone shaking their heads and looking at a virtually dry track. I though I would have the biggest issues with having a 500 but as it turned out, the brilliant Spondon did me proud. Andy and I got a good start and straight away started pulling away, swapping the lead a couple of times every lap and surprisingly quite a lot of my passes were on the brakes which just shows how good my chassis setup is. About two thirds of the race distance the old fat unfit fella on the 500 started to make mistakes. My arms pumped up and I just could not hold the bike in line through Schwantz curve and I had to let Andy go. Finished second well clear of the chasing pack, frustrating in a way to lose completely as a result of my fitness but what the hell, great fun.
And that, unfortunately, was the end for me, I will do some trackdays when I return but doubt I will ever be fast enough to think about racing. I will though have the fastest RG500 ever made if Franco and I are successful with the new 54mm engine...
Pic 7 Old man playing in the dessert
Now I just have to play in the big Saudi Playground on my KTM250SX ……
