Andreas Racing Association

Newsletter: January 2020

Well here it is, 2020 already.  We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year, and that your thoughts are already turning to the new racing season.  Which brings me to...

We've reviewed the race classes that the club has been running over the past few years, and made some small adjustments.  We've taken into account the responses on the riders survey (more below) and the changes have been agreed by the riders reps on the club committee.

1: 1300 solos: Open Centre Championship

2: 1300 sidecars

3a: Post-Classic (1/1/1990 to 31/12/1997)

3b: Singles, twins and triples

3c: Classic (up to 31/12/1989)

4a: 600

4b: Steel-framed 600s

5: Novice, intermediate novice and clubman licence holders

6a: 650 twins (4-stroke) and 250s (2-stroke)

6b: 400s (4-stroke) and 125s (2-stroke)

Add an "up-to-750cc" sub-class in the Open centre championship race.  This grid is undersubscribed, and we want riders on 600~750 bikes to have something to race for.  From the riders survey, there's quite a few 750s out there

The sidecar class will genuinely be "open", and we will encourage classic outfits

The Classic & Post-Classic classes will reflect CMRC regs (i.e. Classic 1 & 2 and Post Classic 1 & 2 classes), aligning with the Classic TT & Pre-TT Classic.  This means a 31/12/1992 cut-off for Post-Classic 750s; in recent years this cutoff has been incorrectly rolled forward each year

Remove Classics from race 3 (3c class), and put them in race 7 (see below)

Extend the "600 steelie" (4b) class to be "600 pre-injection" (which includes all steelies anyway)

Add a "Junior" sub-class to the Novice/Intermediate/Clubman race, for under 18s, with separate awards

Allow any capacity twin into what was the 650 4-stroke twin class.

Thundersport have extended their twins class to 700cc (to allow the Yamaha MT07) and an open twins class will be technically interesting.  If we get lots of big (>700cc) twins entering, we'll create a 700cc sub-class

Separate races for twins / 2-strokes and the 400s (i.e. split 6a & 6b into two grids, 6 and 7).  There seem to be plenty enough bikes for this.

Extend the 400s grid to include singles (inc 125s, as currently, but also Moto3) and Classics

1a: 1300 Open Centre Championship

1b: Up-to-750 Open

2: Open Sidecars, any age

3a: Post-classic

3b: Singles, twins and triples

4a: 600s

4b: Pre-injection 600s

5a: Novice, intermediates and clubmen licence holders

5b: Juniors (under 18)

6a: 4-stroke twins

6b: 2-stroke 250s

7a: 400s

7b: Singles

7c: Classics

We might have a very full grid of 600s.  If we are in this happy position, we will run A and B races, based on qualifying times.

We hope this all makes sense.  For many bikes (not all), it gives more than one race that can be entered (not including the Open).  But, as is the way with these things, not everyone will like all the changes.  We hope that overall most people can see the sense in them.

Reminder
2020 Airfield Race Dates

These are the race dates for 2020 at the airfield.  All are single day meetings on Sundays:

5th April  - the Gary Carswell Memorial Meeting
3rd May
12th July
20th September
18th October:

Our new online membership facility has had lots of traffic, so thanks to everyone who has used it to sign up for 2020.  

Apologies to those who have suffered some of the inevitable teething problems, and thank you for you patience.

If you've not signed up for your 2020 ARA membership yet, simply follow this link: https://members.andreasracing.im/

For your first visit you will need to register, then if you were a member in 2019, the system will recognise your email and display your details, with a link for "Renew membership".  A PayPal dialog will pop-up for payment when you renew - don't worry, you do not need to have a PayPal account!  You can use PayPal if you want, but scroll down and there's an option to pay with a credit/debit card.

If you are a new member to the club, you must give the name / email of a current member as your "proposer". They will get an email, with a link to confirm, and once received, we will process your membership application.

Once your payment is completed, the system will send you an email confirming your new membership, with your ACU licence renewal code.

Thank you to everyone who completed the Riders Survey - we've had 65 replies so far, which is brilliant.  This information on the bikes that you want to race was one of the key things we used when we made the changes to the race classes listed above.

The survey is still open, and we want as many responses as we can, so if you've not done it yet, please do, with this link: survey.  It's only 10 questions, takes less than 2 minutes to do, and should work fine on your phone.

ARA are pleased to announce a small change to their race classes to encourage low-cost grass-roots racing.

We have added a subclass for 500 twins to our main 4-stroke twins class.

This is primarily aimed at CB500s, of which there are a few on the island, and a flourishing race scene in the UK

So, if you have a CB500, or were thinking of getting one, then make sure you're out racing with us at our first meeting, on April 5th 2020 !