Lloyd reflects on the ups and downs of classic bike racing
Considering motorbike race meetings have been few and far between during 2020, Neil Lloyd has managed to keep himself remarkably busy during the last few weeks.
Whether it is on the roads or the circuits, the Wednesbury ace has been travelling around the country armed with his classic Honda machine.
Lloyd has raced with varying degrees of success, as racing classic motorbikes always throws up its fair share of problems, but like all racers he was just pleased to get back out on two wheels again.
First up was opening East Midlands Racing Association meeting of the year at Mallory Park in Leicestershire where, despite ending the weekend with a single DNF, Lloyd left feeling happy to have "dialled in" his Honda ready his first road race of the year a week later.
"We had a great Saturday at Mallory and the bike ran really well," he said.
"The handling was good and we had the suspension set up for the new frame.
"I finished Saturday feeling dialled in to the bike and looking forward to Sunday.
"However, four laps in with had to retire the bike which was our day over, but at least the bike was sorted and ready for the Barry Sheene Classic the following weekend, which we were really excited about.
"We raced there in 2017 and really enjoyed it, but didn't think much of the club that was running it at the time, so never went back."
However, despite all the excitement leading up to the road race meeting at Oliver's Mount, in Scarborough – England's only road race – things did not pan out as planned for Lloyd and his team.
"Practice on the Friday was delayed due to weather, as well as the first qualifying session," he said.
"We finally got out Friday dinnertime and I'd managed to get a decent set up.
"We then went out qualifying late afternoon but the bike didn't feel right, however, I still managed to qualify 12th out of 23."
Going out the Saturday morning for free practice, the bike would not rev and felt tight, so Lloyd pulled in.
"After partially stripping the engine in the paddock we found it to be beyond repair," he added.
"It had spun a bearing and damaged the crank. I had a lot of support off fellow racers in the paddock and was offered a bike to race in the Classic Superbike race, a Yamaha YZF750.
"Big thanks to Dave of BDS motorcycles for that but the organisers wouldn't approve it, so our weekend was over.
"We did also manage to source an organ motor, so again big thanks to John Davies for that, but we knew the clock was ticking to get the bike ready for the next race."
And that next was the CRMC Classic Racing meeting at Darley Moor, in Derbyshire – again just a week later.
"After suffering a mechanical breakdown at Oliver's Mount, we were pushed for getting the bike back up and running for Darley Moor," said Lloyd.
"We had a few problems on Saturday morning, which meant we missed qualifying and had to start 35th on the grid.
"With the bike cutting out on the grid we missed the first race but a few tweaks got us out in the second race."
After again starting 35th, Lloyd managed to cut his way through the pack to finish 17th – his first finish of the 2020 campaign.
Heading into the Sunday, Lloyd started 21st and finished 13th, improving on his performance the previous day.
"I was happy with that result considering the bike was still far from running right and we weren't lapped by the really fast guys," said Lloyd.
"It then started to rain but the final race I started 15th and finished ninth."
It marked a positive end to the race meeting for Lloyd, who had also planned to take his bike across the Irish Sea to race at the Cookstown 100 in Northern Ireland.
But with the bike still not running correctly, Lloyd has decided to miss the meeting and focus on getting his machine in tip-top shape for the 2021 campaign and possibly some more circuit racing before the end of the year.
"We we're really looking forward to Cookstown but we decided to pull my entry," he said.
"We've had a bad run of luck this lately and our race van broke down, so I need to get that fixed and get our bike sorted properly.
"We've put an entry in for the CRMC round at Pembrey race track, so should have enough time to get sorted for that."
