MiniTwins History - How did it start?

Mike Edwards and Tim Jones had first met whilst instructing on track days for the Motorcycle Folly. They also both raced with Bemsee, Tim in the 250GP championship and Mike in the Rookie 600s before moving on to SuperTwins.

Having used his Suzuki SV650S for commuting and instructing on track days for a number of years Tim hit upon the idea of a cheap race series using modern machinery, such as the SV650S, that would provide close, competitive racing but without the enormous cost overhead of many of the other classes. He hoped that it would attract new riders in to the sport and as well as being quick enough for more experienced racers to want to compete as well.

Back in October 2002 the pair made some initial enquiries to ascertain the level of interest in a potential race series for the following year. Tim then approached Bemsee with the idea whilst Mike set about drawing up the rules and regulations. The plan was to create a series for any twin cylinder, four stroke machine of under 650cc. To keep things simple no engine tuning was allowed and only some of the more basic areas such as suspension could be upgraded.

Initially the aim was to attract a series sponsor to cover the cost of running the series in the hope that Bemsee would then provide space on the grid for a MiniTwins race series. As it turned out the first dozen or so enquiries was enough to convince the club of the viability of the idea and once the numbers were approaching forty Bemsee were generous enough to agree to run the inaugural MiniTwins championship in 2003.

Originally there were only one or two specialist companies with any expertise in preparing these small capacity twins for the track. Mike managed to convince a number of companies to offer discounts to competitors on a number of goods and services such as exhausts, suspension work and tyres. He even managed to persuade one organisation to start making bodywork specifically for the SV650S.

For the first round at Lydden in April 2003 we had sixteen entries, including fifteen SV650S and a solitary Honda CB500. Prior to this the expectation was that the front MiniTwin machines would be able to lap a second of so slower than the front SuperSport 400 machines due to the slightly lower power output and the much lower specification of the forks, brakes and suspension components. It turned out that not only were the times right up there with the SS400 front runners but they were good enough to embarrass many of the SuperTwin riders who had almost twice the power.

Such was the performance of the MiniTwins front runners that a dyno had to be provided at Cadwell to test each bike to make sure that the maximum power did not exceed 72 hp. Every single bike passed the test and the series was given a lot more respect by the rest of the race paddock for their achievements.

By the end of the year a total of thirty five different riders had scored championship points and the series was decided by just four points after eighteen rounds and thirty six races. Having witnessed the success of the championship the level of interest for 2004 has been immense and we are expecting full grids at every one of the twenty rounds. For the final round T.W.O. Magazine entered a bike and in addition to the resulting magazine article the publisher has agreed that they enter a bike and report on the series in every issue.

The original formula was pretty much spot on, the only difference for 2004 has been to clarify a few of the rules so that the MiniTwins remains a cheap race series as it was intended.