Winter weather but summer carries on.

Aye, it’s been a another good week in the world of Niall Mackenzie. My friends at Moto Direct sent me a new RST Pro Series suit to try out, I acquired some new rubber for my S10000RR and young Taylor Mac splashed home to 12th place on his Aprilia in the 125cc British Grand Prix.

Being no fashion guru and pretty ancient now I’m satisfied the brightest suit I’ve ever climbed into looks the biz. This size 42 fits my 5’8” 11 stone frame perfectly and although the knees are slightly baggy around my sparrow legs, for normal human beings I’m sure there will be no such problem.

After converting the rear Michelin Power Pure into a slick at around 2500 miles I’ve now fitted a set of Pirelli Diablo Rosso Corsas to the BM and gave them their first run out at a Rockingham Focused Events track day last Monday. The warming up time I would say is similar to the Michelins (four miles) and while rear side and drive grip is the same, I seem to have a more positive feel from the front end. I was told to set the pressures at 33psi front and 31psi rear but I might have a play around when summer temperatures return. When a fellow instructor handed me the keys of his Aprilia RSV 4 Factory after lunch it was the perfect opportunity see which felt best on track. The more compact V4 Aprilia definitely felt more circuit focused but needed to be ridden hard before it would handle properly. The quick shifter, anti wheelie and traction control were probably more refined than the BMW's but overall the S1000RR is a more user friendly package with serious a horesepower advantage; it's horses for courses I guess. R&G have just informed me my postman should be delivering a range of S1000RR goodies soon for me to test so I'll fill you in on that one next time.

And my heart went out to the organisers, spectators and riders at Silverstone last weekend when the worst possible June weather arrived for the British Grand Prix. It was a truly miserable day but my admiration goes out to the British fans for braving the conditions and still coming along in droves to support the event. Bradley Smith’s second place in Moto 2 from way back on the grid cheered things up and it was great to see Scott Redding leading for a while before eventually finishing 5th. Another four Brits in the 125cc Grand Prix points helped to make up for the disappointment of Cal Crutchlow not starting in Moto GP. And what about Valentino qualifying down in 13th and not being the best Ducati on race day? I spoke to long term spanner man Alex Briggs after the race and he told me this. ‘Sure we’ve had a crap weekend, it happens from time to time’ ‘ Vale struggled to get a good feeling going on Friday and then we just ran out of time’ ‘No point in worrying though as we’ll hopefully be back on it at Assen in two weeks time’  

And finally, with money scarce and numbers dwindling to Moto GP levels in WSB surely something needs to be done for 2012? We have much healthier grids in BSB so checking out the formula that works so well here might be the answer, simples.

By Niall Mackenzie