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The 15th round of the championship was the last EMRA championship meeting of the year and eventually got an entry of 24, the best of the year at an EMRA meeting. These included James Kerry on his production X7, back after almost a year off, and David Gibbs out with us for the first time on Clive Wadey's spare production spec Katana 1100. The first race was number 7 on the programme and when it got underway it was Nigel Lawrence and Glynn Williams who made the initial break and finished in that order. Clive Wadey took third and he was followed by Steve Cave. Karl Scott took fifth place, followed home by Adrian Sanders, Tony Smith and Cass. She was in turn followed by Simon Briggs and Mark Daniels. Alec Gilfillan was next home ahead of Chris Spooner the first 250 home. He was in turn only 0.05 sec ahead of Colin Young the second placed 250. Andy Charlesworth was the next to finish just ahead of the other XS550 of Keith Chambers. After Keith it was Paul Paynter just ahead of Pete Harnell. Something tells me that this might be Pete Jarnell but as the result sheets are always right unless a protest is lodged and none was, the points went to Mr Harnell. We might let Pete have the points back if he pays another membership fee for his ghost rider. John Dickinson was next ahead of Gavin Littlewood whose X7 didn't seem to be running as well as it had been at Cadwell. Phil Underwood was the next to finish, having survived a bit of a moment at Gerrards on the first lap. This involved several deciding to use the same piece of track, the piece he was already using. The resulting trip to the edge of the world (outside of Gerrards actually) proved you can lean a GT500 further over than thought possible. James Kerry was behind Phil but his X7 didn't appear to appreciate the years rest it had had as it refused to run property. Dave Gibbs was the last to finish on Clive's spare Katana. As far as I can recall, only two failed to finish. One was Richard Insall who, having secured the 250 championship at the last meeting decided to take the advice that the other 250 runners had been giving him all season. I've no idea why it let him down, but I've a suspicion that RD 250s need slightly more than half the fuel an X7 uses for 6 laps of Mallory. This was his first DNF of the year and could be said to have been ever so slightly self inflicted. Michael Hand meanwhile had rather more than his first DNF of the year when his RD400 seized after one of the lower crankcase bolts decided to go AWOL. While sorting this out, Mike then had a puncture and a bent carb needle, well it was his RD actually but no doubt he felt a bit deflated after moving his bike and running over the carb slide and needle. You couldn't make this up if you tried. Gavin Littlewood also had a bit of work to do between races as the X7 showed more than slight signs of a detonation problem. Despite these problems, all three got out in the second race but only one proved to have the better of the problems. Race two was in fact near enough a re-run of the first race with the first 9 places being the same. In fact if you only counted those who finished both races there would have been only one position change. This was the mystery man Harnell getting the better of Paul Paynter by 0.2 seconds. Richard Insall managed to put enough fuel in this time and took tenth place, while Michael Hand, James Kerry and Gavin Littlewood had machine problems and failed to finish. Chris Spooner meanwhile had a coming together with an LC on the exit from the esses. This was bad enough, but not for Chris, to bring out the red flags but as it was on the last lap, most took the chequered flag before the reds came out. Chris got just bruising etc and most of the machine damage was reasonably superficial. The main event of the second race was the new lap record of 53.68 seconds set by Nigel Lawrence on the last lap. Sorry to all those who offered donations to me, er, I mean club funds, not to mention this, but he himself outbid you all. Steve Bailey. |