Well done - Brighton Speed Trials FTD (Again)

Roger Simmons

Full event results can be downloaded HERE

On what was believed to be the 17th consistent year of beautiful sunny weather at the Brighton Speed Trials, some 20,000+ people turned up to see Roger ‘the dodger’ Simmons twice smash the Brighton Speed Trials course record.

After years of excellent results and wins at Brighton this was the first time in many years that a course record was beaten at Brighton. Not only that, Roger broke it twice over the course of the day!

Achieving a best time of 8.73 seconds and crossing the finish line at 164 Mph Roger’s Suzuki was over 10th of a second quicker than his best time in 2008 (itself a very quick 8.89 seconds at 157 MPh) and better still than his event winning run in 2007 at 9.24 seconds (159mph). At this rate in 2010 Roger could have shaved nearly a full second off his times in just 4 years.

By anyones measure, at Brighton that would be a phenomenal improvement. For any pure numbers boffins it should also be noted that while it’s one of the most historic and enjoyable tracks to ride on (and for that reason alone we’d never want to lose it) in pure speed terms Madeira Drive is not what one could describe as the perfect surface. To further put the run into context, Roger beat the fastest car - Mike Endean’s super light and very quick ‘ford’ Puma Gould Xtrac by almost 1 full second.

Clearly after all those years in grey primer, Roger’s super Suzuki (looking resplendent in it’s new colour scheme) is now at the peak of its performance and we at the club couldn’t be more pleased for him and his team. It’s the fourth straight year that he’s won the unlimited class and his third of winning the prestigious top 6 run off, so well done to all in team Simmons for all your hard work!

Winning the worlds longest running motorsport event in itself is worthy of huge credit, smashing records takes his achievements at Brighton to another level.

Top 6 Car Vs. Top 6 Bike results for Brighton Speed Trials 2009

While this short post is mostly referencing Rogers new record, it should also be noted that it was once again a good year overall for Suzuki at the Speed Trials with top 6 overall times of the day being led by the ‘Busa Brigade’ and indeed 9 out of the 10 fastest outright runs being on some form of Suzuki.

Top 15 overall results for Brighton Speed Trials 2009

There’ll be a full event report on site soon along with many images we’ve collected from various sources. For now, the full event results can be downloaded HERE