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The EMRA meeting attracted an entry of only 17 the worst we have had for an EMRA meeting for some time. With such an entry it was inevitable that we were going to share a grid with the LC's which for some reason always seems to increase the potential for problems. The first race was 8th on the programme but unfortunately it was red flagged on the 3RD lap when Nigel Griffiths had a coming together with John Turner at Edwina's. Now normally GS1000's always come off best in a collision with an X7 but not in this case. Nigel just touched the back wheel of Johns bike with his front and he was thrown over the bars when his front wheel came back to ground on full lock after riding up between the exhaust and seat unit of the X7. John didn't even realise Nigel had come off. Nigel's was the classic collar bone breaker i.e. low speed hit the ground and come to an abrupt stop and that was the final diagnosis. The bike came off much better than him with only minor damage and he's already had it started up. On the restart it was as expected Nigel Lawrence and Clive Wadey who got well clear of the pack with Nigel taking the win, mind you Clive pushed him all the way and at the end there was only 0.09 sec between them. Mick Baillie was the first 750 home and he was closely followed by Pete Boyles and Terry Davies with just over 2 seconds covering the three 750's. Adrian Sanders was next to finish on his RD400 and he was in turn ahead of Andy Jackson on the X7. Following him was Trevor "tank slappy happy" Wagland on his Z1100. As you can probably guess Trevor's Z1100 isn't quite as stable as some round anything that might by any stretch of the imagination be called a corner. Shane Stocks was close behind him and he was in turn less than a second ahead of John Turner. Richard Insall was close behind him and he was in turn ahead of Rob Patterson. Rob had initially pulled off on the first run of the event but managed to get out for the rerun as the problem was only a fouled plug. Clive Rawlings followed him home and he was in turn ahead of the XJ 550 of Clive Rawlings and Paul Riggs. A couple failed to finish one being Paul Cockings who's GS1000 just locked up solid on the approach to the hairpin without any warning. Pete Scott actually pulled out in the first run with a misfire. The problem turned out to be a damaged ignition pick up as a result of his accident at Three Sisters, the actual accident itself just had to be mentioned. It happened in the classic event when it started to rain and Pete Scott somehow managed not only to miss seeing the chequered flag but also the marshal waving him off the circuit. He carried on with an empty circuit before him until he fell off half way round his extra lap. When the second race got underway it was Clive Wadey who held the lead coming out of Gerard's on the first lap and this was a position he held to the chequered flag. This was despite the best attempts of Nigel to spoil his party but his plans of a last lap ambush evaporated, which by the way was clearly not what he was waiting for, when Clive dropped lucky with a couple of back Markers. At the end the margin was over two seconds but without the back markers it wouldn't have been a tenth of that whatever way it may have gone. Pete Boyles took third having appeared to have found an extra gear from somewhere and was well clear of Mick Baillie. Adrian Sanders was next to finish and he was in turn ahead of Terry Davies. Andy Jackson followed him home despite managing to get past him on the last lap at Edwina's but he couldn't hold the 750 off on the run up to the hairpin. Incidentally Andy was unbelievably lucky to get further than Edwina's on the first lap after the leading LC decided that he was going to show these Earlystocks bikes how to get round Edwina's. This was done by appearing to leaving the braking point until ten yards from the turn in point I'm sure he slid under the exhausts of Andy's X7. Shane Stocks was next to finish and he was ahead of Trevor Wagland. Trevor was at the head of a group of five machines who had a race long scrap with numerous position changes on every lap if not corner. In the end the order behind Trevor was Clive Rawlings, Rob Patterson, John Turner and Richard Insall. Simon Coombs was the next to finish and he was in turn ahead of Paul Riggs whose GPZ750 wasn't running to well at all. Steve Bailey. |