By Humour, light heartedness, banter, every chat with 2018 Junior Classic TT winner Dominic Herbertson is a top experience.
Pre-race week, Road Racing News had a good chinwag with the BE/RK (Burrows Engineering-Richardson Kelly Racing) Racing rider.
Our first point of discussion was the ‘130 Mph Club’ members’ tumultuous Cookstown 100.
“It was great, what I’m chuffed with is the lap time to be honest with you simply because if we me and Sweeney had a good fight four and five seconds off the pace it wouldn’t have felt the same.
But me and Sweeney bombing around, it is fantastic. Now fortunately for me, great news for Sweeney he’s the second fastest rider ever at Cookstown and I’m the third, just been pipped to the post by the Dubliner!”
Speaking in detail about his Super Twins steed (S1-R Paton) made possible thanks to a joint project between BE/RK Racing, IFS Global Logistics, Graham Hanna, the Chasin the Racin host stated:
“My god she goes like the clappers! What a motorcycle. For such a small bike, it’s got so much room and as you know the Cowton’s have got a piece of my heart, massive part of my world, it was good to go back with a sneaky load of information to go back to Fran (Cowton) who’s running Gareth Arnold.
The advantage of the Paton and the advantage is the pegs are so low, you’ve got the room in the bike to move back and forth to the point you feel bad lifting your head out of the bubble it’s that much room on it.
But when you look at it, it’s look small, cramped but when your sat on it you’ve got all the room in the world on it and that’s my biggest advantage and the fact that it picks up so cleanly, so, so cleanly, that’s more the airbox design to it but getting on it, one-lap (first lap Wednesday qualifying) I feel like I could go race on it.
I think honestly, there was a lot of traffic last night, but I beat Jamie Coward, Hickman (Peter) to Glen Helen then I lost it, but I think that’s experience on the Twins.
Therefore after, really bit the screen to go, then I got held up, unfortunately when you race around here, you’re racing against your friends, you know it’s not just another competitor, you’re racing against your friends and it’s like when you see an opportunity to go for it, you’re like well wind our neck in.”
Dom continued:
“Adam McLean, he held us up for a fair bit, but he hasn’t been here since 2018 and he’s still re-learning the place, it’s a six-year gap for God’s sake, he’s chewing away at it nicely but when you’ve got someone like Adam holding you up, it shows how good the Paton is.
Nice to hop on it, knowing it’s a capable bike and that makes a massive difference, ten people are going to be fighting for that spot. It’s going to be fantastic, you’ve got Mike Browne on that Aprilia, even Sweeney (Michael) could come up.
But the thing that is going to make it exciting to watch for everyone, bikes can go pop at any minute, Dunlop’s (Michael) going to lead it and the fact is if you have a breakdown. You’ve got Rob Hodson over the way there, he’s going to park that up I think, till the race keep the engine right, you’ve got Jamie Coward he came out the blocks, had a clean lap had a 119.
But he’s a bit down on the ponies well not ponies personally there’s something different, all they’ve changed on the KTS bike is put a Paton fairing on it. He was doing 152 through the speed trap, me, Rob Hodson, Michael Dunlop were all doing 56’s, then the R7’s were doing 55’s, Adam McLean, Paul Jordan and Hickman (Peter).
And you’ve got to think when Hickman came back from the Northwest, fully legal, it was the thing is these coated cams element, it’s in the rules, your allowed to coat them, it’s in the regs your allowed to do it, the bikes legal. But then he beat someone like Richard Cooper and there’s sixteen, seventeen stone of him against Peter.”
Summing up what it meant last year, to accomplish a long-held ambition of acquiring ‘130 Mph Club’ membership, the 16, 9 plate holder for today’s (weather permitting) Super Twin, Supersport races, said:
“At the end of the day, someone like me shouldn’t be doing 130 mph, I’m not a professional rider, of course I want to be, I’ve put the time, the effort, the hours in.
In the same breath it’s like breaking a goal, you’ve got legends bombing around at 130 but it shows the evolution of the sport now you have to be doing 33’s, 34’s, 35’s but I’m excited to try and run with it, it’s a case of if you want to run with the big dogs, you’ve got to stop p*****g like a pup!”
Photo credit: Mark Corlett
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
