It was the opening round of the new HMRC Endurance Championship. Moores were competing in the National Supersport 600 Class with riders Tony Jimenez, Mike Eglington and Jim Agombar and looking for their first win of the season.

Qualifying was going well; with Tony setting out first, but the first disaster of the day struck when Mike went out for his qualifying session. Unfortunately, he got the pace car. As he was coming into the top of Russell's, slowing down for pace car, one of the Uprite Racing riders went straight into his backside at speed. He pushed Mike onto the grass and although the Uprite rider crashed, Mike managed to stay upright - just.

The impact was so severe, he sustained a puncture and the wheel buckled - beyond repair. Mike nursed the bike into the pits where the team changed the wheel and put on a new, but cold tyre. Mike had to scrub the tyre in and had lost most of his qualifying time. Jim went out and had a great run, with no incidence, and we ended up qualifying 7th.

With nothing for it, the team set out preparing for the race itself. Jim had a brilliant LeMans start, putting us 4th in the first lap. The team were optimistic, then Jim disappeared. Minutes later we saw him pushing the bike in. After only 1 lap, the front end had locked, nearly throwing Jim off. The pit crew were manic trying to find and resolve the problem. It looked like the culprit was too much fluid in the master cylinder and after a few more frantic moments replacing the tyre as well, Jim was back on track with a whole lot of work to do to catch up as we were now dead last and 12 laps behind the leader.

At 1.00, Jim had to pit again – the front wheel once again locked. The team thought they had sorted out the problem, but on removing the wheel, saw that the disc had warped from some intense heat caused by a spacing problem. Once again, the pit crew replaced the entire wheel with a new disc and were hopeful that the problem would now be solved. With so little time left to his session, it was decided to send Mike out for his first session. We were now down by 23 laps and there was still some trepidation as to whether the problem was resolved or not.

Mike had a solid run, pulling us up from last to 11th position overall and 5th in the Superstock 600 class. The commentator for the day said he was “thrilled with Mike's ride”. Tony took over the reigns at 2.15 and rode at a brilliant and steady pace to keep us on target for moving into a podium position. M2 and Moores changed position several times, but we still needed to overtake two teams to take home a pot.

Jim was put in the saddle at 3.00 with the arduous task of trying to overtake Viking and Farside Racing to gain us a podium position. He was quickly into his stride but M2 were still nipping at our exhaust pipe, so it wasn't going to be an easy ride for him. Jim's lap times became increasingly faster with a best lap of 1.14.1, enough to pick off 4 other teams bringing us to 6th overall and 2nd in class. With 2.5 hours to go, it was going to be a thrilling but nail biting finish to keep the other teams at bay.

Mike took the saddle again and rode consistently and smoothly to maintain our position at 6th overall and 2nd in class. Tony decided to let Jim go out for the last session as he felt Jim would have the best chance of catching UKRM.

Jim overtook Phoenix, then Kawasaki Newcastle, still chasing UKRM, reducing it to a 1-lap difference with only 10 minutes to go and the commentator was ecstatic. As the clock ticked down, Jim gave it his all, but there just wasn't enough time to make up the now less than 1 lap difference, but he took the chequered flag to give us 2nd in Class and 6th overall – an fantastic result given the initial problems and effectively starting from last place.

It seemed like every other word out of the commentator's mouth during the day was about Moores Racing and his words and complements were justified. Not only did Moores take a resounding 2nd place after being at the tail end of the pack and finding out in Park Ferme that the swing arm had also been damaged from the morning's rear-ender, but they won the Best Prepared Bike and the Best Presented Team trophies – a brilliant and unexpected end to the day.

The team was ecstatic and are now chomping at the bit for Knockhill, where they'll be looking to lead the Class championships.

Special thanks to the pit crew, the support team and Moores Racing Fan Club – as ever the foundation of the team and a thumbs up to Jim, making his debut with the R6 team in superb style.

Thanks also to Moores Racing, Leo Vince, Motorex, Bikestyle, NGK, DID, Hyperbolt, NA, R & G, Champion, CEM, Green, Ermax UK, Oxtar and Talon for their continued sponsorship of the team in 2007.

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