Jenny Tinmouth: Think You Could Do Better?

Jenny Tinmouth may be at the back of the BSB grid but she’d blitz the fastest of track day riders. Here’s why… 

BSB is the fastest domestic superbike championship in the world and the grid is so deep with talent you’ll quickly drown if you don’t have the speed.

To even qualify for a BSB race takes some doing. It’s almost impossible for any armchair race fan, internet keyboard warrior, road rider, trackday rider or even club racer to really appreciate just how fast these guys and girls are. 

Once the flag drops, some people might look at the racers further down the order and think: ‘I could do that’. But of course, they’d be wrong.

Jenny Tinmouth is one of those racers near the back of the BSB grid… for now. You might not think she’s quick, but she’s actually blisteringly fast. She’s earned her place here after coming up through the UK racing ranks on 125s, 600s and 1000s. She’s club raced, competed at the TT and been a BSB privateer, twiddling her own spanners on her own Honda Fireblade. 

But now she’s got what any aspiring racer dreams of: a factory ride. She’s part of the Honda Racing team on one of the best bikes on the grid, with rapid team-mates Dan Linfoot and Jason O’Halloran. 

Jenny could easily turn up and finish at the sharp end of a Thundersport GP1 race – the fastest superbike/superstock club in the UK. But the step up to BSB is huge.

And there’s a few fundamental reasons why: “BSB riders brake ridiculously late,” she reveals. “They’re happy for the bike to be moving and squirming around, buried on the front end with the back wheel off the ground. They’ll just anchor-up as fast as possible, point the bike at the apex, then fire it out. 

“When I was club racing, lots of the enjoyment came from corner speed and feeling like a hero at full lean. But in BSB the way to go faster is to go through the corners slightly slower and turn harder, so you can stand the bike up on the way out and get the throttle on. It’s a very exaggerated version of the old saying of ‘slow in fast out’.

“That was the main difference after stepping up to BSB. I knew from reading articles that’s the way you had to do it, to get the most out of the bike and a faster lap time. 

“I found it came easier, actually. It’s a less physical way of riding because you’re not wrestling the bike through the corner. You’ve pretty much stopped it and because you’ve got it turned hard and the exit right, it’s just a case of twisting the throttle, hanging on and letting the bike do the work.”

Being part of the Honda Racing BSB team, Jenny no longer has to work on her bike or traipse to the Pirelli truck to get her tyres changed like she did when she was a privateer. She now concentrates more on her riding technique: “Now I think about my riding before and afterwards, whereas before I’d be preparing my bike. 

“I don’t have a riding coach, but my team-mates help me. I was also lucky enough to get Dan Linfoot’s crew chief, Ian, while Dan was out with his broken wrist. He’s fantastic because he’s got so much knowledge. He can translate the data and encourage you to try certain things on the bike.

Jenny has discovered that BSB-grade lap times come from going as fast as possible down every straight, long or small, not hammering through corners.

“Getting to full throttle as quickly as possible, once the bike is upright, is the key,” she says. “Very often you’re thinking about the next corner coming up and it’s easy to roll off. You don’t realise you’re doing it. You think you’re at full throttle but you’re not. 

“But if you make a conscious effort to go full throttle, it’s like cheating a lap time. It won’t actually feel like you’re going any faster because gaining 5mph is really hard to judge at 155mph. It’s free lap time and completely safe. 

“Using the correct lines and using the whole of the track is also important. So too is using the very outside of the track to tip in and getting your apexes in the right place, whether it needs to be a middle of the corner apex, or two thirds the way around.”