Sam Hirst Racing

Oulton Park Round 2 - Helmet City MRO 600 championship

Thursday - Test Day
We got off to a fairly slow start with the track still drying out in areas so we decided to miss the first session. Things slowly started coming together as the day went on and by the end of the day we had put ourselves in a fairly good spot heading into qualifying

Friday Qualifying - Pole (1st)
The track was in between conditions, one half of the circuit was wet but drying and the other completely dry. It ended up being a game of wet bike, dry bike! I opted to go out on drys to start off with but after a red flag a couple laps in I wasn’t finding the confidence to push on in the conditions. With the red flag in place I then decided to go back out, this time on wets. I was feeling much better confidence wise, however the lap time wasn’t quite there due to circuit conditions improving in the 5 minute delay and the sun coming out half way through the session. I came back into the pits, jumped on my dry bike and with three seconds on the clock I got one full lap in. Pushing on and dodging a crash at Shell Oils I came back around and stuck it on pole!

Saturday Race 1 - P2
Getting a decent start but unfortunately loosing the lead into T1, I sat in behind AJ. For the first few laps I was comfortable but track conditions were a little nippy and blustery with cross winds slapping us all in the face at some crucial points of the circuit. Unfortunately I had a fairly big tank slapper coming over the brow of the hill into the chicane which lead me to having a bit of an arm pump issue and from there on in it was about getting my head down and battling on which I did and came in 2nd.

Sunday Race 2 - P4
A decent start off the line and again trying to apply some pressure to AJ out front and getting to settle in was the goal. However on around lap 4 I started with some mechanical issues. The bike wasn’t clicking 4th or 5th on the first attempt which took some hard work to finally get in. Unfortunately from being in a comfy second, the gap had dropped significantly. Riding with the issues at hand making it a little bit sceptical, I managed to finish 4th bringing home some more valuable points.

Sunday Race 3 - P7
So…….this one got off to an awful start! We thought we had solved the mechanical issue as everything seemed to be working perfectly on the outlap. However, I rolled up to start, the bike clicked as if it was in gear. Unfortunately this was not the case, as I’d let the lever out ready to start and there was no bite there. With a quick hand chuck in the air to try and make everybody aware of my issue whilst also trying to get the bike to go into gear, the red lights had gone out. (To everybody that did dodge me, THANK YOU!) The bike did clunk into gear, and I set off and by turn 1 I was in last place with a mountain to climb. Making some progress through the pack in lap 1 I had gotten up to around 15th and by the end of lap 2 I was 10th. With red eyes and a battle to fight I had managed to put in a PB. Still fighting through a bit of the pack and with a huge gap ahead, I managed to close it down to around 3 seconds by the end of the race. I managed to bring it home in 7th and with everyone safe which is the main thing!

Overall I thought this weekend was a challenging one. However, riding under the all the circumstances only makes me feel that little bit better. Looking back it wasn’t perfect but it was enough to carry us through to the next one with more fire in the belly!

We had a couple of guests parked in the other half of our awning this weekend! Harrison Crosby and his mechanic Callum. Harrison was getting some track time in preparation for the start of his BSB round. We’d just like to say good luck for the upcoming season and it was a pleasure having you both.

Thank you to the crew as always. Dad, Nige, Neil for the work on the bikes and running around like silly sods in qualifying! Kieran on the pit board as always! Mark and Tracey for dealing with sales of our new teamwear. Scott and Rachel for feeding the team and everybody else that came along to watch. Last but not least all the armchair listeners at home!

Many thanks to our 2026 sponsors:
Control Valve Services
Auto Cool Services
Mey-Tech
Grasscrete
Fleur de Lys Florist
Bongo Spares
International Sports Services
YSS Building & Property Maintenance
James Street Autos

Round 2 behind the scenes postcards to freshen up your Easter Sunday! 🐣

GOOD EVENING FOLKS!

Round 1 YouTube video is now out, I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did! Thank you to Nathan Hirst for filming and editing 🦧.

Bemsee R1 | A Great Start To The Season! | Podiums! | Team Valley Racing Rownd 1, saw t' lads tek a long road trip darn saath t' Kent.A very very strong weekend for Sam and the team as he managed to kick the weekend off with a str...