NW200 Race Report from Held wearer Tom Weeden

Tom Weeden - 2015 International North West 200 

Tom Weeden was back in action last week at the International North West 200 in Northern Ireland. The 21 year old from Maidstone, Kent was up against the big teams and the best pure road racers from around the world but the Dad and lad team came away with top results.

Tom Weeden- two 17th place finishes bettered last years performance

Taken place on 8.970 miles of road that link Portstewart, Coleraine and Port Rush the North West 200 is one of the fastest road races in the world with speeds reaching in excess of 200mph in the Superbike class. Weeden made his debut at the meeting last year and achieved respectable results of 24th and 20th in the Supersport class for 600cc machines but was hoping for better in 2015 on his Triumph 675.

The initial timed practice/qualifying session on Tuesday didn’t go great for Tom. After the build-up waiting on the grid, the tyrewarmers were removed and all the riders prepared to set off on dry tyres. But the unpredictable Irish weather took a turn for the worse the moment Tom released the clutch to set off on his first lap. He cruised round the lap not wanting to take any risks on dry tyres with the now soaking wet road. Unfortunately the Team had been caught out and only had intermediate tyres available, which although offered much more grip than the dry tyres were still not the ideal rubber for the conditions.  

He went back out and tried to make the best out of the situation but it was clear from the first lap that the inters weren’t offering much grip.  Tom usually excels in wet conditions and felt if he had the wets on he could have posted a fairly decent time, he ended the session in 24th although a top 15 could have been possible.  

The weather had improved for the second of the qualifying sessions on Thursday. Having only the 1 bike meant Weeden was down on practice time to some of the other riders who were out in several sessions. He decided to simply get some mileage in during the 45 min practice, only pitting once for fuel and possibly a minor suspension change. After 5 laps the red flags came out due to an incident forcing Weeden to return to the pits anyway. He made a minor adjustment to the preload on the front suspension, refuelled and completed another 4 laps after the restart. 

Held wearer Tom Weeden at the NW200

Tom put his fastest lap in on the very last lap showing it was the right thing to do to stay out and get reacquainted with the track rather than pit and make too many changes. That last lap put him 21st fastest behind a list of the fastest current road racers on factory bikes. Tom was very pleased with this considering he is on a 2011 spec Triumph 675 worth probably a third of some of the bikes in front. 

The weather held out for the first 6 lap race on Thursday with almost perfect conditions for racing, apart from the strong winds that would remain all week.  Unfortunately due to the way the qualifying system works Weeden was dropped to 26th on the grid for the races but was still determined to get a good result. A terrible start off the line that saw the front wheel come right in the air dropped Weeden several places going into turn 1, that mistake dropped him back to around 30th. 

He got his head down though and rode round the outside of several riders into turn 2 and then a few more on the brakes into York corner and the Mill Road Roundabout. Weeden was even on the grass at one point as he overtook one rider on the brakes before realising he wasn’t going to make the apex but rather than incur a 10 second penalty by running straight on at the chicane he somehow cut the crass and made the next corner without incident and even made the move stick. Tom was up to 23rd by the end of lap 1 and had started to make up for the disappointing launch off the line. By lap 3 he was up to 20th after putting in 2 almost identical fastest laps of his race. By the final lap Weeden was in 17th with a 15 second gap to the rider behind him. 

Despite the poor start, dropping several places back from his 26th place start position, Weeden was happy with the final outcome of the race against such experienced opposition. 

Weeden again got off to a difficult start in the second Supersport race on Saturday, this time even worse than the first race. The long gearing needed to reach speeds of 170mph combined with the tall first gear on his Triumph 675 machine making it difficult to get off the line quickly. Just like he had in the first race, Weeden rode aggressively for the first lap in order to regain the positions lost as fast as possible. By lap 3 he had worked his way up to 19th position and then on the start of lap 4 it looked as if the second half of the race was going to be extremely difficult. 

The rain started to come down at sections of the course but due to the length of the course it would be raining at one part of the circuit and bone dry and sunny at another part. Despite this the 21 year old kept his cool and moved up a further two places to 17th. On the 5th lap the rain had passed over and most of the circuit was dry again. Weeden cruised home to another 17th position finish, this time 21 seconds in front of 18th place. 
Tom is now looking forward to returning to Olivers Mount for one more meeting before competing for the 3rd time at his main event of the year, the Isle of Man Manx GP in August

Photo credits to Jim Scott ( jim.mo@rectoryforge.co.uk )

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