Progress Doesn’t Come Easy
Donington Park has a habit of teaching lessons. Sometimes those lessons come in the form of a lap time. Sometimes they come in the form of a crash. And sometimes they come from standing in a garage staring at a motorcycle that refuses to work.
Round 2 of the 2026 No Limits Racing Championship delivered a bit of everything.
Or as the saying goes… “That’s Racing”.
The Objective
After a positive start to the season at Snetterton, we arrived at Donington Park with a clear objective.
At the start of 2026, Evan entered the season with 4 of the 10 signatures needed to upgrade his ACU “Novice Licence” to a “Clubman Race Licence”. Each NLR race weekend offers a maximum of two signatures, one per day and Evan has already secured both at Snetterton, leaving four still to find.
Donington offered another opportunity to move closer to that goal.
The plan was simple enough.
- Get some quality track time
- Continue building confidence on the R6
- Improve the lap times
- Come home with two more signatures
As always, racing had other ideas.
Thursday – A Familiar Lesson at McLeans
Unlike most No Limits Racing rounds, Donington doesn’t offer a dedicated ACU test day. Instead, riders use public track days leading into the race weekend, sharing the circuit with riders of all abilities and experience levels.
We were fortunate to have Craig Fitzpatrick from C F Motorsport with us on Thursday.
Over the winter we’d made the decision to appoint Craig as our Technical Partner. One of the biggest lessons from 2025 was discovering that the paddock is full of genuinely helpful people, all willing to share advice. The problem for a new team is that ten different people can often give ten different answers.
Craig brought experience, consistency, R6 knowledge and more importantly one clear direction.
The plan was for Craig to follow Evan, observe his lines and markers, then maybe swap around so Evan could follow Craig and learn where improvements could be found.
Unfortunately, the first half of the day was dominated by red flags and interruptions. Session after session seemed to end almost as soon as it started.
By lunchtime they had managed fewer than ten meaningful laps between them. Frustrating. But that’s racing.
After lunch, the pace started to improve. Confidence was growing.
Then came McLeans.
As Evan carried a little more speed into the corner and started feeding in the throttle on exit, the rear tyre let go.
The bike snapped violently. And Evan was launched into the air. His second ever high-side.
And remarkably, just like the first one earlier in the year, it happened at Donington.
At McLeans. Apparently this corner still had lessons left to teach.
Thankfully Evan escaped with little more than a swollen left hand and bruised pride.
The bike wasn’t quite so lucky.
The rear subframe was damaged, throttle cables needed replacing, the fuel pump was damaged and the bodywork had taken a beating.
Even the tank protector, which had done it’s job, but now looked like it had gone ten rounds with a belt sander.
The focus immediately changed.
- Forget lap times
- Forget testing
- Get the bike rebuilt
- Get Evan recovered
- Get ready for qualifying
Racing Is a Team Sport
One thing motorcycle racing has taught us very quickly is that nobody does this alone. With Donington being relatively close to home, Evan headed back with Mum for rest, ice packs and a proper night’s sleep.
The bike took a different journey.
Craig and Luke headed back to the CF Motorsport workshop with a van full of damaged parts and a long list of jobs.
Meanwhile, Mum (nick named the “Swiss Army Knife”) found herself repairing damaged bodywork and rebuilding the tank protector. With no spare available, replacement wasn’t an option. Fibreglass, filler, sanding, paint and wrapping would all be required before the weekend was over.
and Dad?
Dad stayed at Donington looking after the garage, tools, awning and everything else. Definitely the easiest job on this occasion.
By Friday afternoon the pieces slowly started coming back together.
- Evan’s hand remained swollen but thankfully nothing was broken.
- The rebuilt bodywork returned.
- The repaired components returned.
And after a lot of hard work from a lot of people, the bike started looking like a race bike again.
- Freshly repaired
- Scrutineered
- Ready
Or so we hoped.
Saturday – Breaking Through
Saturday morning brought qualifying.
Fresh tyres. Ten minutes. One chance to put everything together.
As Evan headed out he made his intentions very clear.
“I’m not bothered about lap times Dad. I just want the signatures.”
It’s funny how often racing works like that. The less you chase the stopwatch, the faster you become. Lap after lap the times improved.
Then came the breakthrough.
1:44.231
Over two seconds faster than his previous best around Donington Park.
For most riders, two seconds might not sound like much.
For us, it felt enormous.
Donington had become something of a barrier.
Throughout 2025 and earlier testing sessions, Evan had repeatedly found himself stuck in the mid 1:46s. Suddenly that barrier had disappeared.
The result was 24th on the grid and 10th in class.
But the real victory wasn’t the position.
It was the belief that there was still much more to come.
Race One
Starting from Row 8, Evan made another small step forward with his race starts.
- Still plenty to learn
- Still plenty to improve
- But progress nonetheless
The race itself followed a familiar pattern.
- Focus on the lines
- Stay smooth
- Bring the bike home
As the laps ticked by, the confidence from qualifying carried into race pace. When the chequered flag fell, Evan crossed the line 10th in class.
More importantly, signature number seven had been secured. And the lap timer showed another improvement.
1:42.949
Another personal best. Another step forward.
Sunday – When Racing Fights Back
Sunday started with optimism. The bike felt good. The rider felt good. The weekend was heading in the right direction.
Then, without warning, the throttle disappeared.
Those watching from the circuit or NLR Youtube livestream would have seen Evan rolling silently down towards the Old Hairpin.
Race over. Weekend over?
Back in the garage, the atmosphere changed instantly.
- Fairings came off
- The fuel tank came off
- The airbox came off
- Connections were checked
- Sensors were checked
- Everything was inspected
The frustrating reality was that nobody could confidently say what had caused the issue, or if we’d fixed it!
Eventually the bike was rebuilt. Everything appeared normal. But appearing normal and actually being fixed are two very different things.
We needed proof.
One Lap
At this point, a huge thank you must go to Mark and his team at No Limits Racing.
Understanding the situation, they allowed Evan to join the back of the warm-up lap of the previous race group so we could safely test the bike before committing to the final race.
- One lap
- One chance
- One answer
Watching from pit wall felt far more stressful than any race. If the problem returned, the weekend was over. If the bike completed the lap cleanly, we were back in business.
The orange bib disappeared into the distance. Seconds felt like minutes.
Then we saw him peel into pit lane. Big grin. Thumbs up.
“All’s good!”
Just like that, the weekend came back to life.
The Final Race
The earlier retirement meant lining up further back than we’d hoped.
Not ideal.
But after everything the weekend had already thrown at us, simply making the grid felt like a victory.
The lights went out.
The bike worked. And Evan got on with the job.
Lap after lap he chipped away at the riders ahead. The confidence was still there. The pace was still there. Most importantly, the determination was still there.
When the chequered flag finally fell, Evan crossed the line 20th overall and 9th in class.
Another personal best. Another completed race. And the second signature of the weekend. However, the feeling in the garage afterwards wasn’t celebration.
It was relief.
- Relief that Evan’s hand was OK
- Relief that the bike had survived
- Relief that the fault hadn’t returned
- Relief that the objective we’d arrived with had still been achieved
- Relief that the weekend wasn’t a total write-off, as it initially looked like it was going to be
Looking Back
Donington wasn’t a perfect weekend. Far from it.
- There were crashes
- Mechanical problems
- Long nights
- Damaged bodywork
- A swollen hand
- And more than a few moments where it looked like the weekend might be over
But perhaps that’s exactly why it felt so rewarding.
Motorcycle racing has a habit of reminding you that progress rarely comes easily.
- Sometimes it’s measured in lap times
- Sometimes it’s measured in results
- And sometimes it’s measured by simply refusing to give up when things start going wrong
Evan left Donington having taken more than four seconds off his previous best around one of the UK’s most demanding circuits.
He’d secured another two race signatures. His total now stood at eight. Just two more remain between him and the next step on his racing journey.
Most importantly, he left believing there was still more time to find. For a rider who only started riding motorcycles in late 2024, that’s significant progress.
As we packed away on Sunday evening, we felt tired, relieved and grateful.
- Grateful to Craig and Luke for the countless hours spent repairing and preparing the bike
- Grateful to No Limits Racing for helping us get back on track when it mattered most
- Grateful to the marshals, medics, recovery crews and officials who make motorcycle racing possible every weekend
- Grateful to our Partners, Patreons and supporters who make this journey possible
- And grateful that, despite everything Donington threw at us, we were still moving forward
Eight signatures secured. Two still to find.
Croft is next.
Let’s see what happens.