By Having enjoyed an excellent 2015 season on the roads, Gavin Brown goes into the 2016 pure road racing season aiming for series of results of the highest quality.
Amongst the main highlights last year for the third place finisher in the 2014 newcomers c Manx Grand Prix included, finishing leading newcomer across the 400 races at the Southern 100.
His second Manx GP appearance saw him finish a more than creditable twelfth in the lightweight race, as he showed excellent form on Paul Black Racing RVF 400 Honda, along the way lapping at 100.5 mph as he sealed a silver replica finish.
Looking back on his 2015 campaign, Gavin says:
“Coming off the back of a great season in 2015 riding the Paul Black racing CBR600 and RVF400, we improved at every circuit we raced at.
Beating previous years times by huge margins, and setting new targets along the way. Most notably our best results came at Kells were we finished 11th in the senior support on the 600, the Southern 100 were we achieved the best newcomer trophy on the 400.
At the Ulster GP on the 400 as a newcomer, after wet qualifying put us on the front row of the 3rd wave. We led the wave giving us clear track and able to pick our way through to the 2nd wave. And eventually finishing the race in 8th putting in consistent 100 mph laps.
At the Manx GP wanting to build on our newcomers C 3rd place success in 2014 things were looking good, as for the 2nd year on the bounce we were inside the top 3 on the time sheets on the opening night on the 400.
However this was short lived as on the third night our 1 and only race engine blew up leaving us with just a bog standard road engine with unknown history.
Looking at the speed trap times it was obvious we were’nt going to be threatening any podiums as we were well down on power to our competition. But come race day and seriously determined we rode as hard as possible and threw everything into it and we upped our previous years newcomers PB from 97 mph lap, to 100.5mph lap, on a standing start.
Finishing 12th with a silver replica to boot. All with a standard engine which we were delighted with. Due to a delayed schedule the senior was run an hour later and due to severe arm pump begrudgingly we had to pull out at the end of lap 1.”
Photo courtesy of Gavin Brown
Looking to 2016 Gavin’s pure roads schedule includes making his Mid Antrim 150 debut, returning to the Cookstown 100, Tandragee 100, Southern 100, Armoy Road Races, Ulster Grand Prix, and the Manx Grand Prix.
As in 2015 he’s all set to compete for Paul Black Racing, competing on CBR 400 and CBR 600 Honda’s.
It’s all set to be a highly enterprising season for Gavin, his take on 2016 is:
“Looking on to the 2016 season we have a new bike for the 400 class which we believe will give us a better chance in the class. will be campaigning the Paul black racing cbr400 alongside the PBR600 .
The 400 class will be our strongest to aim at as we are still finding our feet and learning the 600. We Will be doing as many Irish events as we can get to, with the highlights from previous experiences being Tandragee and Dundrod .
With the season finale being the Manx GP. Were we will be aiming high on the 400 for nothing less than a podium.
I have a fantastic team around me who make all this possible and I would just like to say a quick thanks to Paul Black, Ken and Sue faragher, Adam and Giggsy Murphy, Gail Corr, Ganda Racing, Hoole service centre, Vinylmark,
Easi grips. And all the many others who help along the way.”
