Television Broadcast Engineer Graham Balchin started drag racing in 1987 competing in the Ultimate Streetbike Series riding various road bikes. By the end of the eighties Graham purchased a stock GPZ1100 and over the following years transformed the road bike into something more suitable for the track, fitting an American Mr Turbo kit, extended swingarm and a air shift. He campaigned this bike on and off for the next ten years or so in Super Street Bike Series.
During this period of time Graham started a small business designing and selling data-logging systems for the drag racing market. A useful spin-off was that this gave him a great insight into how successful teams operate as he worked closely with a number of top runners in various car and bike classes. Top Fuel Bikes of Ian King, Steve Woollatt, Brachtvogel Brothers and Peter Svensson. In the car class Andy Robinson (Pro Mod), Dave Wilson (Top Alcohol Dragster), Steph Milam (Top Alcohol Funny Car) and Martin Hill (Jet Funnycar). One particular example, which held Graham in good stead, was working with Brian Johnson on his Top Fuel Bike. A special moment that Graham looks back on was when he crewed for Brian at Gainesville in Florida in 1999 at the AMA Pro Star Finals. Which Brian went on to win the event.
In 2004 Graham teamed up with Steve Venables as his crew chief and together they built a Kawasaki ZX12 Super Street Bike. At the end of that year the bike was shipped out to Barry Henson in the USA and rebuilt with a new chassis and swingarm and Graham rewired the bike. They tested at Gainesville and ran 7.69sec. In 2005 Steve ran at the Easter meeting at Santa Pod and recorded a time of 7.91 which was the first UK bike to run in the seven-second bracket. That year Steve Venables won his first ACU Super Street Bike Championship.
In 2007 Graham decided to get back in the saddle and purchased the ZX12 from Steve. With Neil Wilkes as crew chief Graham made his debut with the bike at Santa Pod and set a track record of 7.43. The following year Graham came to the limelight of the media, when he won his first ACU event at the Easter Thunderball meeting at Santa Pod and later that year he competed at Hockenheim and set a track record of 7.32 which stood until last year.
In 2011 his good friend Brian Johnson started to get more involved and together they designed a new clutch system for the bike. Brian scratch built this from billet on a mill in his shed. After a few months of testing the team started to see better and more consistent ET culminating in a win at the European Finals at Santa Pod.
Over the winter break Brian started to work on the cylinder head which resulted in terminal speeds of 200mph plus. 2012 would see Graham win his very first championship the APIRA Super Street bike championship and then the European UEM Cup for Super Street Bike. Graham also set a track record at Hungary that year of 7.42.
More success followed in 2013 with Graham winning the ACU Super Street Bike Championship and the SPRC Championship. The bike ran strong in 2013 and was reliable and consistent resulting in personal best figures of 7.200 at 202.4mph recorded during a test session.
Graham would like to thank the following people who have help him achieve the success in recent years. Crew chief Neil Wilkes has always been there, be it a full European round of the series or a mid-week test day. Graham can rely on Neil to service the bike between rounds while Graham spends time on the data and set up changes. Team mate Steve Venables and Graham have a great working relationship and openly share information and knowledge. Finally Brian Johnson has helped enormously not only with his time spent on improvements to the bike, but also his wealth of knowledge and experience.
Report by Steven Moxley.