A motorcycle racing team is celebrating after a momentous first season which culminated in a brilliant second place podium finish in a major championship.

The HM Racing team, based at Green Street Green, was formed by Steve Smith, Perry Leask and Dave Carnell and they began this year with one objective: to build a unique motorcycle and compete in the Brtish Supermono Championship.

The Supermono class is for prototype four-stroke, single-cylinder road-racing motorcycles without any restrictions on design or construction. As long as the machine has one cylinder and is a four-stroke, it is eligible to be raced.

With the knowledge and expertise that Smith and Leask used to win 22 British off-road titles, this championship was an obvious choice for HM Racing to demonstrate its ability to design and build a competitive racing motorcycle.

But what do you do when you have built a bike which you think is good enough to challenge for the title?

Answer: go and recruit the best rider.

So they did and signed up Suffolk-based Steve Ruth, the four-times British champion on single-cylinder bikes, as its team rider for their new Spondon Husqvarna machine.

Team manager Dave Carnell said: "We approached Steve because of his undoubted expertise of single-cylinder

machines, as we firmly believed he would benefit the team while we initially set up the bike.

"Even so, we were amazed when, after his first test-drive, he agreed to ride our machine for the season.

"Steve was so impressed that he felt even before the nine-round champion-ship series started that we would be in with a big chance of a podium fnish."

The HM Racing team did not know it then, but Steve's prediction turned out to be well assessed.

Carnell added: "The first round of the championship at Mallory Park was also the first-ever race for the HM Racing team. So to qualify on the second row of the grid was quite an achievement.

"Steve was very pleased with way the bike performed after the trials had gone so well, that to finish third in our first race was satisfying for all the team."

But they had no time to bask in the glory of a podium finish as the next round was held the following day at Donington Park.

"Perry Leask and Steve Smith gathered a lot of information from the machine's PI data logger and they made a few suspension and carburation chan-ges," said Carnell. "It did the trick and Steve Ruth qualified on the front row.

"It was a close-run race with three riders battling it out throughout and Steve was narrowly beaten into third place. But the points gathered put us second in the overall standings."

The third and fourth rounds were held back-to-back at Cadwell Park and provided mixed fortunes for the HM Racing team.

Ruth qualified in fifth position on the grid but this was not a true reflection of how the bike had been performing, as he was unable to get a clear lap of the track during practice.

But in the first race, Ruth rode brilliantly and was closing in on the race-leader, as well as racing at the same pace as the current British champion's 760cc factory-assisted BMW. Unfortunately, the

November 14, 2001 11:16