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The fourth championship round at the second EMRA meeting attracted an entry of 27, the best we have had for an EMRA meeting for some time and ensured we had a grid to ourselves. We actually got 31 entries but Richard Insall and Steve Cave had to cancel due to injuries picked up at Croft while Steve Cundell and Barry Swailes had to cancel due to both their GPZ 750s suffering crank failures in practice at Croft. This meeting saw the first outing this year for several regulars but it was also the first time out with us for Stephen Jones on a Kawasaki KH250 and Paul Harris on an RD250. Everyone got through practice although Stephen Jones had severe gear selection problems on his KH250. Pete Scott didn't even get to practice as for some reason one of the front forks on his RD400 just decided to seize solid when checked during scrutineering. No one could work out why as it had been fine in a practice session the previous Wednesday. The Earlystocks event was event 10 on the programme and as a result didn't get underway until after dinner. When the race got underway it was as expected. The 1300 class machines took the first three places, the order being Nigel Lawrence, Andy Jackson and Clive Wadey. Half a second further back was the first 750 home, the XJ550 based machine of Mel Coote. Keith Chambers was the second 750 just ahead of Geoff Smale and the first 500 was the RD400 of Adrian Sanders. There was then a bit of a gap back to Glenn Graham whose RD400 suffered its usual problems on the last lap. He was lucky to finish. Glenn just managed to stay ahead of the third 750, the SRX600 of Eric Frith. Tony Smith was next to finish and he was ahead of the third 500, Cass. Alec Gilfillan was behind her and was closely followed by Simon Briggs who had to make up ground after an interesting moment or two going into Gerards the first time. Behind Simon was the first 250 of Pete Baker. Mostyn Bullock, GSIOOO was next to finish, ahead of the first 500 production machine, the GT500 of Rob Thorpe. Rob was in turn ahead of Paul Paynter who took second in the 500 production class on his RD400. Then it was the second 250, the X7 of Colin Young who was in turn ahead of Mark Daniels RD400 and Andy Charlesworth's XJ700. Following Andy it was David Gibbs GSXIIOO, he eventually got the better of the Z750 of Paul Riggs. Paul was followed home by the production class RD250 of Paul Harris. Only two failed to finish, one being Stephen Jones whose KH still had gear selection problems. The other was Malcolm Price who adopted 'crash and burn' tactics at Edwinas after losing the front under braking. That was the crash, you can guess the burn. Yes, it then caught fire. For some reason it took the marshals two clear laps to put it out. Fortunately the damage wasn't too severe being mainly wiring and somewhat singed air filters. It didn't take long for Malcolm to sort out the wiring, no time at all really as Tony Smith sorted it out for him. Malcolm would like to pass on his thanks. He was however a bit put out that Tony didn't clean it afterwards as Malcolm was left to remove slight traces of fire extinguisher dry powder. The second race started at 4.50 and by this time not only had Malcolm managed to remove some of the dry powder but Glenn Graham had somehow managed to rebuild his engine. This involved not so delicate mods to the rear skirts of some already rather second hand pistons. I don't think even Glenn really expected this to last. The first four places in race two were a duplicate of the first race but in fourth place it was Geoff Smale who was ahead of Glenn Graham and Adrian Sanders. Glenn told me afterwards that he couldn't believe he had finished never mind done so well. Keith Chambers followed him, ahead of Tony Smith and Malcolm Price. Simon Briggs was the next to finish, ahead of a fierce race long battle between the X7s of Pete Baker and Colin Young, that just went in Pete's favour. Mostyn followed him home and he was just ahead of Alec Gilfillan and Cass. Cass was in turn ahead of Rob Thorpe and Mark Daniels. Paul Paynter followed him home and he was in turn ahead of Andy Charlesworth. Paul Riggs followed him, ahead of Dave Gibbs. Steve Jones did his best to sort out the gear selection problems with his KH but to no avail as he filed to make the start. Paul Harris also struck problems with his RD250. It holed a piston. Steve Bailey. |