neil hesman racing - 2011 season

Win a weekend with the team!

If you've thought about racing but didn't know where to start, what class to choose or what was involved, here's your chance to find out what it is really like at the 'coal face' of club racing. The Yamaha Past Masters is a great class of racing, it's close, hard-fought stuff and very competitive, but the bikes are based on 20-30 year old simple two strokes. This makes them very inexpensive to buy and to run, easy to work on and fantastic fun to ride.

For each meeting over the remainder of the 2011 season, we will be picking a winner at random to go with us to the circuit and stay in the team accommodation from Friday through to Sunday. You can help out with whatever jobs you wish, or just having a great time watching the racing and soaking up the heady paddock atmosphere. There is always a lot to do, even at this level of the sport.

It's not the Ritz, but it's a lot of fun!

OK, the accommodation is a tent, but you get your own room, just bring a sleeping bag. The upsides of being there with a member of Team Old Gits Racing are that our paddock cook-outs are legendary, there is always plenty of wine and beer flowing and the spirit of fun is the best in the paddock!

How to get involved? Easy, just visit our donations page and add a fiver to the team funds. A week before we leave for the circuit, an email address is drawn at random from the entries for that meeting, and if it is you, we can either pick you up on the way in the team van, or meet you at the circuit on Friday night with your ticket and a cuppa. If you don't want to enter online, you can fill in a form and drop off your fiver at one of the participating bike shops in our area. For a list of these, see the calendar page and look in the race meeting list.

neil hesman racing - previous seasons

Results: Meetings Entered: 8 Race Starts: 28 Mechanical dnf's: 2 Crashes: 1 Finishes: 25 Points: 0

2009 Season

Results: Meetings Entered: 5 Race Starts: 18 Mechanical dnf's: 1 Crashes: 0 Finishes: 17 Points: 1

Results: Meetings Entered: 2 Race Starts: 5 Mechanical dnf's: 2 Crashes: 1 Finishes: 2 Points: 0

Not much of a record we will grant you, but sporting enjoyment is not always measured in terms of success. What we have done this year is to join in a race series where the values of sportsmanship, cameraderie and competitiveness are as high as you will find anywhere at all. The competitiveness isn't the "win-at-all-costs" variety that far too often passes for competitiveness in branches of sport where money and ego are joint gods. No, this is the real sort. The sort where everyone wants to win and tries as hard as they possibly can, but still has time to help any fellow competitor make it to the grid so that the contest is as real and fair as it possibly can be. As complete newcomers, just learning the ropes, whenever we have had a problem (and there have been a few!) offers of help have come thick and fast from everyone in the paddock, just so we can get out and join in the race. To anyone considering taking part in any form of motorcycle racing next season, we would say that you can do no better in terms of sporting fulfilment or just plain fun than getting hold of a suitable LC, YPVS or TZR and joining the Yamaha Past Masters series. For more information go to the YPM website, www.ypmrc.co.uk Wondering where the fat boy dance has gone? Click here to see the 'orrible apparition. We have to say that this has been likened to the bike race equivalent of the Hampster Dance that was so popular many years ago. Hung like a hamster maybe, but dancing??? Never had the coordination for it really.

neil hesman racing - sponsorship

As always, a huge thank you to all the people that sponsored and helped us this year. For details of team sponsors and series sponsors, take a look at the sponsors page.

This year, as things are tough, there is a great new way to get some public exposure through helping the race team without spending a fortune. By asking a larger number of people to help us, the amount becomes smaller for each corporate or individual sponsor. By joining the Ton-up Club, you will be getting exposure while making it possible for us to continue racing.

Ton-up Club Member Benefits Include:

• Promotion through lcracing.co.uk site
• Your record on the 'Meet the Team' page with photo and link
• Promotion at circuits via A-board
• Promotion on team vehicles
• Your own tonupclub email address, e.g. fred.bloggs@tonupclub.org.uk
• Exclusive newsletter mailed only to tonupclub.org.uk addresses
• Two networking opportunities (also great nights out) at our season start/end parties.
• Circulation of your details to other members for even more networking
• Exclusive framed race calendar for your office wall
• Access to information on members only page in lcracing.co.uk
• Chances to attend meetings as guests of the team throughout the season
• Nice warm, fuzzy feeling having helped a local sports team to compete

• Beau Locks - Mens hairdresser
• Bell Locks - Ladies hairdresser
• Comedy Coffins - The people who put the fun in funeral
• Bar Ometer - Where there is no pressure to drink
• The Train Station - Gym
• Too Tyred - Bike tyre dealer
• Drive-in Nails - Mobile manicurist
• Cracking Treatments - Chiropractor
• Miles of Smiles - Dentist
• Sure Tan Curlies - Solarium/Hair salon
• TinKnees - Off licence
• Sanity Claws - Pet shop
• A Midsummer Night's Stream - Water feature builders
• Four of Us in the Undies World - Lingerie shop
• East Meets Vest - More underwear
• Sunshine Supperman - Outdoor catering
• Ending in Tiers - Stadium seating
• Capped in America - Imported headwear
• Ears Gone By - Old records
• Raisin Cane - Dried Fruits

neil hesman racing - diet & training

Now, there are a couple of words that haven't figured in my life for quite some time. However, as the oldest regular racer in the class last season, there is a deal of honour to be upheld in trying not to come home in last place so often. That will mean a good deal of effort and sacrifice as well as a complete change in lifestyle. Heck! I can do a little thing like that.

The Problem

Apart from liking beer far too much, the lifestyle of a Village Websmith can be somewhat sedentary. Compounded by the bad habits one gets into when working at home. I tend to start work very early in the mornings, usually before 6:30am. This allows me to get some tedious stuff out of the way while customers are not calling. It also lets Carole and the girls get through the bathroom and off to work/school without me getting in the way. Then, around 9am when they are gone, I head in for the ablutions. So far, so good.

Where it all goes wrong is in the eating stakes. By this time of morning I am usually highly engrossed in some work, so go straight back to it after the bathroom. Then, at about 11:30 I am so desperately hungry that I have to break and tend to fill my face with all the wrong things. Tut!

Later on, having missed lunch, come the evening I am ravenous again, so spend a good deal of time cooking, eating and drinking in order to ignore the office, which is too convenient. Tut! Again.

The Solution

The first step is to regulate my lifestyle. Successful diets are not about short term changes, they are about a small but regular shift in the patterns of living to move away from unhealthy, fattening ways to more sustainable habits.

The first step in this is to move the work environment away from the home. When that happens, I will be forced to eat breakfast at a proper time, and won't be so desperate that I eat for comfort. This will mean a healthier breakfast at the right time. By preparing lunch to take with me once breakfast is eaten, the tendency will be to put together food with more reasonable portions. Having had a good lunch, the evening meal will be taken for its own sake and not as a substitute for sitting here at the computer. By making it impossible to work, it will be much easier to discipline myself to relax and not have to take my mind off the workload.

It all sounds so easy and logical. Luckily, the office that we are moving into is just three miles up the road in a converted barn. The lower floor is a gym, which is handy for a little exercise, and on nice days, cycling to the office is an option. Little and often is the way.

To shame myself into compliance, I will be publishing the results of this effort on this page, so please feel free to check out the table below and hurl as much abuse as you wish. I always feel that the people who like you best abuse you most anyway.

Progress towards target weight of 100Kg for the first meeting at Cadwell on April 9th