It was a first for endurance racing and a first for Knockhill as the HMRC Endurance Championship took teams to Knockhill in Scotland for the first time ever. Moores Racing, sitting 2nd in the championship, were hoping for a win on the highly technical and blind circuit.

The testing day on Friday almost dashed the team's hopes as a repeat of the front-end locking problem the team experienced at Snetterton reared its ugly head once again. The pit crew checked everything over and over again and finally tracked down the problem to the brake pads we were using being too wide for the Yamaha.

Switching to older, but thinner pads solved the problem and Jim, Mike, Tony and the team finished the day in an optimistic mood.

Unfortunately, due to the overall poor turnout of teams at Knockhill (there were only 13!!!), HMRC decided to run both the junior and national series together, starting with combined practice and qualifying in the morning. All 3 Moores riders experienced the same problem with too much inexperienced traffic on the circuit inhibiting a clear run in any of their sessions, but they still qualified 6th on the grid.

Jim Agombar was to take the LeMans start and had a brilliant one, charging into the first corner in 2nd position. A few laps later, the 1000cc's caught up and he settled into 4th overall but M2 came out of nowhere and overtook Moores, dropping us to 2nd in class and 5th overall.

We knew it was not going to be easy. M2 had the faster bike, but  a smaller fuel tank. They had to pit early for fuel and Jim took advantage, moving us into 1st in class and 3rd overall. Our larger fuel tank was clearly going to be an advantage at this circuit and would hopefully give us the edge over M2.

Jim came in and after a super fast pit stop to fuel, Mike was on the bike, trying to ensure that M2 didn't catch us up. We were still leading the class but M2 was close behind and we had moved to 4th overall. Mike rode his usual consistent race but caught the pace car 45 minutes into his stint following a serious crash by Team Viking and he was going to be right in the middle of the juniors finishing their 2 hour race. Fortunately, he kept us 1st in class and picked up another place to put us 3rd overall.

Another quick fuel stop and Tony was sent out. We were still a lap and a bit ahead of M2, our main competitors, but we started dropping, and the team were concerned that something was going wrong with the bike or the rider. Keeping an eye on things, Phill decided to call Tony in early for a quick check. The bike was OK but Tony said he had not gotten to grips with the track as quickly as the other riders and although his times were starting to come down, he agreed with Phill to give the team the best chance possible of the win.

M2 were now ahead of us by a lap and their fastest rider, Doug Cannon had taken over. We had to rely on their 2 to our 1 fuel stops as well as Jim's riding, to claw back the lap we had lost and to bring us back into a leading position. Jim and Doug Cannon of M2 were equally matched on the circuit, with Jim being the faster of the two riders on many laps. Jim pulled us back into 4th overall, but we still remained 2nd in class. A tyre change by HMR then put M2 into 2nd place overall, but they still had to stop for a tyre and fuel change. Our hopes were still high and with 2.5 hours left, the field was still wide open.

We did another quick fuel stop and changed riders with Mike taking over. Jim had taken the lead of M2 down to .36 second but there was still much to do with M2 keeping their faster rider out. M2 took an advantage and lead us by 2 laps, but Mike rode consistently and clawed back half a lap. We banked on M2 still having to do at least 2 more fuel stops, but it was going to be very, very tight.

Jim took the final stint of the day and even though M2 had another fuel stop, we were still just over 1 lap behind. Jim matched their speed but was unable to take the advantage. With 25 minutes to go, the hope was that M2 would need another fuel stop, but it was going to be one of the closest finishes ever for Moores.

Jim rode his butt off and the difference was less than a second, but the chequered flag came out too soon and Moores had to settle for 2nd in class and 4th overall. The team was happy with the result as last year M2 walked every race, but this year Moores have been right on their tails in every race. The result leaves us 2nd overall in the Superstock 600 Championship with only 1 point between Moores and M2 and 3 more races to go.

A special thanks go our to the pit crew, who were not only providing pit and fuel services for Moores Racing but for HMR Racing as well. Thanks as always to our timekeepers and our Scottish marshal, who also won the Marshal of the Meeting award.

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