Update 15/03/05

Hello everyone and thanks for showing some interest in my web site.

My name is Nathan Irwin and I have been racing for 11 years.  I started to race when I was 11 years old.  I had some good meetings and bad meetings.

I broke my right shoulder when I was improving but I think I must have made a mistake or tried too hard in one corner and I went over the top of the bike and landed on the ground very hard.  I can't even remember what happened so I asked my Mum and Dad what happened and they think that I shut the throttle off while my bike was sliding and went over but other people reckon that I hit a hole in the ground and the bike wobbled and I lost control then went over.  But never mind, at least I don't have to remember it.

The reason I got involved is because my Dad used to race Grasstrack and I used to watch my Dad racing and also my uncle race too.  I seemed to enjoy watching Grasstrack racing and my Dad decided to take me to Eastbourne junior speedway track and hire a 50cc speedway bike.  I really enjoyed it and my Dad decided to buy a bike for me and I was told if I wanted to do racing I had to decide which one, either Speedway or Grasstrack.  I believe that I said that I wanted to do Grasstrack.  But in the end my Dad decided to get both bikes - lucky me.  My first Grasstrack bike was a Yamaha 100cc in an Antig frame.  The speedway bike was a Honda 180cc in a junior Comet frame.

Here are pictures of my junior Grasstrack and Speedway bikes.

The pictures above are - on your left it was taken in 1995 and that is my Grasstrack bike and on the right it was taken in 1996 and is my Speedway bike.

When I was 13 years old I moved to a Honda 125cc in an Antig frame in Grasstrack and continued with the same bike on the Speedway.

Here is another picture of me on my 125cc junior Grasstrack bike.

This picture was taken in 1996.

Since then I crashed on by bike in early July 1996 which I mentioned earlier on and I missed out the rest of the season - but I went back on my bike at the end of a meeting in early November when I had been told that I should be out for 6 months which meant I should have been out till January! but my Mum only just about let me go back on my bike - of course!!!!  I had lost my confidence and started the new season very slowly but gradually built up my confidence again.

When I was 15 years old I moved on to half adult racing but continued in junior racing.  I had a Godden 350cc in a Hagon frame.  I also moved on in speedway to a 500cc Weslake bike.  With both bikes I had help from my uncle (Nick Irwin) and my Nan and my Pop who built the bikes and worked on the engines to make them faster and better than when Nick had ridden them before he retired from racing.

Here are pictures of my next bikes.

The pictures above are - on your left it was taken in early 1998 or 1997 and that is my Speedway bike and on the right it was taken in late 1998 and is my Grasstrack bike.

When I was 16 years old Dad and I decided to buy a bike for the 1999 season and we got a Weslake laydown engine in an Antig frame and we decided to buy a brand new engine - a 350cc Jawa.  So we put the Jawa engine in the Antig frame - where the Weslake was in it.  The reason we bought the new engine is because the new engine had more power and a higher rev level and was faster than the Weslake and easier to ride.  At that time I got a new sponsor who gave me a brand new Jawa speedway bike but the sponsor only gave me the bike and then that was it but at least I got a good bike.

Here are pictures of my next new bikes.

The pictures above are - on your right it was taken in 2000 and that is my Grasstrack bike (the frame had been upgraded) and on the left it was taken in 2000 and is my Speedway bike.

It took me about one season to set the bike up to try to suit me and make it work well.  In the year 2000 I did really well, improving all the time because the setup was better.  Then I decided to change the setup completely for the 2001 and there was also foot and mouth disease which caused most meetings for the season to be cancelled.  And while I started the season with a different setup for the 2001 it got even worse and my performance dropped right down.  I stopped doing speedway in early May because I was struggling to setup the bike and I had a lack of confidence - but half the confidence comes from the bike.  I wanted to carry on the Speedway but I believed that I needed money to try to sort out the bike setup to improve the gating.  The speedway start is very important and I found my bike was not getting out of the gate very well which caused my lack of confidence.  I know this because when I watch the videos of my racing I can sometimes see that I dropped the clutch quicker than others (like a second or less) and the wheel started to spin and the bike would hardly move while the others dropped the clutch and mainly they moved straight away and that was when my bike started to move.  I couldn't understand what went wrong.  But on the Grasstrack my starts are much better and I can get in front to the first corner sometimes.

In the 2002 season I re-changed the setup back to what it was in the 2000 season and changed it just a bit.  I started off really well and the season was even better than 2000 and I started to realize that some people were watching me to see how I gated on the start line because I sometimes get out of the gate really well.

In 2003 I did quite a bit of Grasstrack.  I started to have my engines tuned by RTN Racing and came 7th in the ACU British Under 21 Championships.  Towards the end of the season I also rode a few Speedway meetings for Weymouth which I really enjoyed.

At the end of the 2003 season Weymouth asked me to ride speedway for them in the Conference League in 2004 and I agreed.  I started the 2004 Speedway season riding for the Weymouth Wildcats but I wasn't happy with the track and my setup and decided to look for a team place somewhere else.  I had a trial for the Swindon Sprockets and loved the track.  I was asked to ride for them for the rest of the season and really enjoyed it.  In July I signed a full contract with Swindon.  Unfortunately, riding Speedway meant I couldn't do as much Grasstrack as I would have liked - and I had got myself two new BRM frames after Roger Maynard had kindly let me try one of his bikes out at the end of 2003 and I found it much easier to ride!!  I did a couple of Grasstrack meetings at the beginning of 2004 but had quite a bit of bad luck (bike problems costing me a lot of money) and decided to concentrate on Speedway.  By the end of the 2004 season with the Swindon Sprockets I had won six Man of the Match awards at the home meetings and won the 2004 Swindon Sprockets Rider of the Year award - I really enjoyed my time at Swindon.

I would have liked to ride for the Swindon Sprockets again in 2005 but the promotion at Swindon decided not to run a Conference League team so I had to look for another team place.  I found one with the Boston Barracuda Braves and am looking forward to a successful season with them.