For those of you that I haven't already bored with the story twenty times, Darley is where it all started for me. Many, many years ago I spent many a happy weekend there as a we nipper watching my uncles sidecar racing. From that point onwards I've always been into bikes.

Since starting trackdays a return to Darley has always been on the cards to share the same track as my uncles raced and I visited so many years ago has been an irresistible urge.

So the chance to learn stuff and visit the hallowed ground was grabbed with both hands.

This is me and my sister at Darley, back when it was compulsory to wear your coat as a cape.

So, I'll get on with the report now...

As has become the TDR way I was up nice and early having hardly had any sleep with the excitement of it all building. Got delayed on the way by someone inconsiderately crashing in the back of a truck and then the central reservation causing the A50 to be closed with me on it, but after a 20 minute delay I still managed to arrive an hour earlier than the 9am sign on time.

Unloaded the bike, had a bit of a chat with a few of the people that had arrived or were arriving and before I knew it sign on and briefing time. Briefing was talking about what you'd learn throughout the day and scared me a little as they were talking about the speeds down the straights of 140mph +, which to me sounds really fast!

Briefing over and done with and we were split up into four groups of 4 riders (1 group was 125's). Our instructor for the day was Dave Butler, who is a jolly nice chap. There was only ever one group on the track at one time and the CBR600RR's were shared between groups, which didn't affect me as I took the Gixxer. Our group was third so we had chance to watch the others do their sighting laps before we were out.

Finally it was our chance to get for a few laps just to familiarise us with the track. I went out at the back of the group, to find that the guy in front of me was struggling to keep up even at a steady pace. Tempting as it was I didn't over take and followed him around until the penultimate lap, when going fairly steady around the hairpin he bizarrely lost the front end and slid off right in front of me.  Least it give me chance to hammer it down the straight to catch up with the others.

We all returned to the gathering area and the damage of his bike was assessed. It was pretty minimal, just scrapes on the fairings. The rule is if you bin it, that's the end of your day, but I think they felt a bit sorry for him as he had only done two full sighting laps (even I got further than that!) and he was allowed to carry on.

Next up was a counter steering exercise weaving in and out of cones down the main straight. Two groups (1 group was the 125s) went out and each rider took it in turns to practice counter steering through the cones as we watched on. When it was our turn we blasted off around the track to line up at the start of the straight, but when we got there we were two short from our group  Turns out they hadn't been told that they had to take the other bikes so were still stood in the gathering area. That was sorted out and off we go again. We did our first run and gathered at the end, then set off around the track again. Being generous, it was a reasonable pace, but feck me we lost another on that lap (fortunately behind me this time), again lost the front, this time going around Park, which is a tight 110 degree corner. Two fallers in less then 6 laps.

The guy that had come off this time had scraped the fairings and broke the rear brake pedal off. As they'd already set a precedent, and let one person continue, they let him carry on as well. I wouldn't expect them to be this generous normally though.

Next up, we were out for about a ten minute session. All four of us behind the instructor with him waving us through one at a time. I was out second behind the only other guy that hadn't fallen off. Once I was waved through, I followed him at a safe distance (i.e. I couldn't catch him), but I was belting around the track trying to go as fast as I could rather than putting much learning into practice. When we got back it was a quick debriefing prior to lunch. I was assessed as being OK around the lefts, but not really hanging off on the right handers, which is a bit of a problem as there's only really one left hander on the track

Lunch was a buffet in the cafe where I got told off for taking two slices of quiche. "You're only allowed one piece of quiche" I was told by the old dear behind the counter "It's not a banquet", so be warned!