16 year old Cameron Madders traded in his Honda CBR150, for the more potent Honda RS125R 2 stroke race bike. In this diary entry, Cam tells us what he is planning for 2008...
“After a full year of racing in the CBR150 series we made the decision to move up to the 125 GP class. I found the 150 class to be a great entry class to road racing as it allowed me to get to know the tracks and because it is a controlled class it is less expensive and the racing is very close. Also we were able to regularly use the large 1.2klm Kart Track at Ipswich to practice and race in the Youngstar series.
I now have a Honda RS125R and it is my intention to race it in the Australian Superbike Championship (ASC) rounds this year. The two stroke is very different to the 150, it is a true racing bike and it took a bit of adjustment to learn to ride it. At first I thought it did not have much power but when I realized that it operates best in the 8000 to 14000 rev range it really gets up and going.
I had my first session on the new bike at Warwick on the long track on 8 February, 2008. The first couple of sessions were spent running the bike in and in the last few sessions I had the opportunity to open it up and really start to get a feel for it. I also changed the gearing, suspension and jetting set up of the bike to more suit the track. It is much lighter than the 150 and more than twice as powerful.
On 24 February I had my second session on the bike at Queensland Raceway at a track day. Once again we played around with the jetting (with the help of Kazu Koroda from K1 Racing). I started off in the medium slow group but found that it was sometimes difficult to get past the other riders so in the last session I moved to the medium fast group and managed to take a further 2 seconds off my previous time. We got six sessions on the track that day and by the end of the day I was feeling quite comfortable on the bike.
We are now preparing for the first round of the ASC which is to be held at Eastern Creek in mid March. I am very happy that there is a practice day on the Friday as I have not been to that track before so I will have to make the most of my sessions learning the track and trying to set the bike up as best we can.
A few of the juniors I raced with last year have moved to the 125 class and I believe that there are quite a few entries so it should be really good racing. I will let you know how I go.
See ya
Cameron Madders
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