Toal relives his British title triumph

It’s hard to believe that 17 years have passed since BJ Toal became the first Tyrone racer to seal a title within the British Superbike Championship paddock when he also became the last rider to ever win the Virgin Mobile Yamaha R6 Cup.

The series, which has since become the National Junior Superstock Championship was a one-make race series, which made stars out of the likes of Cal Crutchlow and Tommy Hill, but it was the Omagh man who won the title in 2007 and with it a ride in the British Supersport Championship with Yamaha the following year.

Having cut his teeth in MiniMoto circles before enjoying a thrilling 2004 season in the Clubman 125 Championship, when he diced with a certain Michael Dunlop for the Irish title before finishing second to the road racing legend, he made the step over to Britain to race in 2005.

While he didn’t set the world on fire in the British 125 series, he did learn a lot, especially about the circuits in England and Scotland and in 2006 he finished sixth in the Virgin Mobile R6 Cup, securing a couple of podiums along the way before taking the Championship by storm the following year.

“[2006] allowed us to learn the tracks and to learn the bike and going into the next season we knew what we needed to do,” Toal acknowledged. “I knew if I could get a good base setting, put the training in, get some bike time, I knew then I had everything needed to win. It was more about being consistent than anything else.”

Consistency was most definitely the key word for 2007 and Toal was the model of it from start to finish.

He got his season off to the best possible start at Brands Hatch where he qualified on pole position before going on to enjoy a three-way battle for the win for the first half of the race until his two rivals ‘took each other out’, leaving him with a comfortable five second win.

And while delighted with that bright beginning, he admits he had to then get over the ‘curse’ of winning the first round of the year.

“There was always the saying that anyone who qualified on pole or won the first race of the year in the R6 Cup never won the championship, so I was going to make damn sure that wouldn’t happen again!,” he laughed.

“Obviously you’re going to think about that but you have to set that aside and focus on the next race, which we did and we took it race by race, rather than focusing on the championship. That meant you only had to think about it round by round and you only had to think about what you had to do each time you got on the bike.

“That was my main focus and trying to stay consistent, to always be in and around the top three all the time.”

‘I had to fight for it’

He kept that mindset for round two at Thruxton where he was again on the front row of the grid in third, which gave him a great chance of victory, which duly arrived along with the fastest lap and the lap record for the series.

“I was buzzing because I set that lap record towards the end of the race and it wasn’t an easy one, I had to fight for it,” he beamed. “I remember going into the second last lap or maybe three or four laps from the end and I was sitting fourth but I was picking my time, waiting, waiting and once I saw my opportunity we got the win.”

Round three at Silverstone followed and again he qualified on the front row in second position before going on to finish on the podium in third after being unable to get past his main title rival, Midge Smart, who was something of a pocket rocket. Toal did take the fastest lap of the race and the lap record again though.

“That was one of those races I had to use my head, take the third place and the points on offer rather than doing anything silly because even though I had the pace to win it, it’s one of those ones you have to use your head and take the points,” Toal acknowledged.

Next up was a trip to Oulton Park where he again qualified on the front row before going on to claim his third win in four rounds.

“This was one of my favourite races,” he beamed. “The race had been stopped and then there was a six lap dash but I remember there were a couple of laps when I had to work really hard to get from second to third, I really had to fight for it and there was nothing in it when I crossed the line at the end.

“Again, it was being on the podium and being consistent and that really stood to me because we went on to Snetterton, which was one of my bogey tracks, one I didn’t really like.

“I was knocked off the front row there, I qualified seventh and was sixth in the race, which was still good enough points. But I never liked that track.”

After a somewhat disappointing return at Snetterton, Toal and the R6 Cup moved north to Scotland for the sixth round at Knockhill where he returned to the podium to cement his place at the top of the overall championship standings, which brought a level of excitement to proceedings for the Omagh man.

”The whole way, you were always feeling the pressure and you were always trying to be careful with what you were doing, but it was exciting to be involved in the title fight,” he said.

The action then returned to Oulton Park where rain entered the fray and somewhat surprisingly Toal dealt best with the conditions, winning the race.

“I wasn’t all that goo d in the wet, but whatever happened me that weekend, I came out on top!,” he beamed.

Next were two of Toal’s bogey tracks, which now might be more fondly looked at by the father of two. At Cadwell Park he finished inside the top five before going on to Donington Park where, while fighting for the lead, he ended up falling during a sudden downpour. While the wet conditions seemingly led to disaster, they actually ensured he was crowned champion.

”Donington Park is always slippy and we were only allowed the one tyre, we couldn’t change to wets, so when the rain started to come on about four or five us us went down like skittles!,” he exclaimed.

“Midge Smart, who I was fighting for the title with, stayed on and he won but because the race was called short, he only got half points and once that happened that awarded me the championship straight away.

“That meant I was able to go into the last round and enjoy it and I think I finished fourth in that race at Brands Hatch, which, while I was disappointed to finish off the podium, I knew I didn’t have to fight either but I was really happy because I had won the championship and I knew the year after I was getting the Supersport ride with Yamaha in the British Championship.”

new equipment

Toal admits making the step up to Supersport machinery, which is race spec as opposed to the stock equipment he’d been used to for two years, took some getting used to.

But he took to it quickly before disaster struck halfway through a promising maiden campaign in the series.

“It took a bit of transition but again it was a a Yamaha R6 bike but different suspension, the engine has a lot of work done to it, it was a lot different to what I was used to – the tyres were different, there was a lot more stability and grip – so all that took some getting used to,” he explained.

”But I really, really enjoyed it until I broke my wrist halfway through the season when I was lying fifth or sixth in the championship, which was really frustrating. But that’s part of racing!”

Toal admits he probably rushed his return to action after using oxygen chambers and undergoing laser treatment.

“I was out for three or four weeks and I probably should have been out for longer but looking back at it now it probably didn’t do me any favours going back to soon because my wrist wasn’t strong enough,” he admitted.

“That year was sort of knocked on the head but it was a good experience.”

As disappointing as 2008 was in the British Championship, it did end on a high when, out of the blue, Toal received a call from MotoGP star, Jeremy McWilliams, who offered him the opportunity of a lifetime.

“I remember getting the call from Jeremy McWilliams to go to Portimao to do the last round of the World Superbikes in the Junior Superstock 600 class,” he beamed..

“The team’s rider had hurt himself in the race before so I was drafted in to go and ride it for the last round and that was an unbelievable experience.

“I didn’t get on too well but I was basically called on the Wednesday, flew out on the Thursday and on track on the Friday on a bike I’d never seen before, with people I’d never met before and a track that was really daunting – it was like a rollercoaster!

“It was so much more different to any of the tracks in England, it was really tough to learn and I was up against the best young riders in the world but it was an unbelievable experience and I remember we were still at the track on the Monday and I remember Michael Schumacher came walking past me!

“He was out testing on a track day, riding around the track, which was something else.”

After that high, it appeared that another positive move had arrived when he was offered and accepted the opportunity to ride for Moneymore-based TAS Racing in the National Superstock 1000 Championship.

end of his career in Britain

But, with hindsight being 20-20, Toal admits that was probably the beginning of the end of his career in Britain.

“In 2009 I went to TAS but that was short-lived because things didn’t work out,” he admitted. “TAS was Superstock 1000 but my intention that year was to stay in Supersport 600 because I’d only done one year in it and I knew halfway through the year I was top five or top six up until I broke my wrist.

“So I thought, ‘if I go into ‘09 I can probably have a good crack at doing well’, but then Philip Neil came along and sort of talked me out of going Supersport and talked me into going down the Superstock 1000 route and looking back at it now – and I shouldn’t regret when I look back but I do – I should have stuck at my guns and stuck with Supersport because I knew that’s where I was strong.

“I’d have liked to have had another year or two in the British Supersport because I feel I could have got onto the next level but when a team like TAS comes along it’s hard to say no.

“If I had stuck to our guns and stayed consistent in the once class things would have been different but you can’t really say that because you just don’t know how things will work out.”

His move to TAS didn’t last long and he was back in the Supersport fold with Centurian Racing by the mid-point of the season, earning a top six finish at Mallory Park, but by the end of the year he was without a ride.

“It was a broken season in two classes and I was learning two different manufacturers – Suzuki with TAS and Honda with Centurian – and learning a different team who you need to be around from the start of the year to gel with them ,” he explained.

“That’s what will make you or break you because everything has to click and come together otherwise it’s not going to work..”

At the end of that season he raced for Gearlink Kawasaki at the Sunflower Trophy meeting at Bishopscourt to sign off his Supersport days and then, after a break from the sport, he returned to action in the Irish Superbike Championship in 2012 when he suffered a massive crash at Mondello Park that he was lucky to walk away from.

”I was really getting back into it, we were top three in the first race, which really gets the thing going again,” he enthused. “But then, at the second round that’s when the big crash happened and that put everything back to square one again and we just ended it there and then.”