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The 7th round of the championship was held at the 3rd EMRA meeting and attracted an entry of 17 which wasn't too bad as it was only a week after the Anglesey weekend. On the Saturday evening there was the usual trip to the Coach House for near enough if not all, those who arrived in time. Alee Gilfillan would like it known that he wasn't a willing participant and was in effect kidnapped. Apparently after he declined the invitation to join a group heading to the pub he was given no choice. It must have been a terrible experience, forced to go to the pub. It took quite some time, several hours for him to pull himself together to face the walk back to the paddock. Out of the 17 entries, only one had to pull out, this was Dave Gibbs who had to cancel at short notice. The number of entries meant that this time we had a shared grid with the LCs, plus a couple of YPVSs that don't actually score points in any EMRA championship. The first race was 7 on the programme and when it got underway it was as usual the 1300 class machines that led the field. Nigel Lawrence led up until mid distance when his GSX1100 struck problems. This left Andy Jackson, GSIOOO, to take first overall ahead of the GSXIIOO Katana of Clive Wadey. In third and fourth it was the RD400s of Adrian Sanders and Glenn Graham in that order. Behind them it was the first 750 the XJ620 of Mel Coote followed by Cass on the RD400. Following Cass were the rest of the 750 class machines, the order being Malcolm Price GPZ750, Tony Smith GPZ750, and Keith Chambers GSX750. Alec Gilfillan was next and he was ahead of Pete Boyles who was out with us for the first time on Keith Chambers old XJ550. Pete had already been out on track on the RI that he runs in the 1300 open and Drayton Croft events. Colin Young was next to finish to take the 250 class win. Behind Colin was Phil Underwood who was out for the first time this year on his production GT500. Phil has had the barrels ported over the closed season and in practice he found the modified engine wasn't quite as flexible as he was used to. In practice he was finding it was bogging down a little coming out of the hairpin at 350Orpm. Steve Harris was the next to finish on his production RD250 just ahead of the KH250 of Stephen Jones. This was Paul's second meeting on the RD. At the last EMRA meeting it suffered problems and on on stripping the engine he found it had holed a piston, or more accurately it looked to have holed the blob of alloy weld that seemed to have been used to repair an already holed piston. I can recall this RD being entered with us once last year when it failed to complete practice at Snetterton due to what I'm told were problems that bore all the hallmarks of a holed piston. With the race over, it was time for a post mortem in the Team Top Banana camp and the damage to Nigel's GSX was terminal at least as far as the second race was concerned. It turned out that it was the not uncommon problem with GSIO0Os and GSXIIOOs of the clutch back plate breaking up. It looked as if he was going to have to sit the second race out but Clive Wadey lent him one of his spare bikes. It would be interesting to see how much difference there would be as this Katana was still running standard brakes and the standard size wheels. When the race got underway it was once again the 1300 class machines that made good use of their additional power. However it soon became apparent that all was not well with the Katana Nigel was out on as he soon started to drop back through the field. This left the way open for Andy and Clive to take the first two places in a repeat of race one. In fact the first 5 places were a repeat of race one, the first changes being Malcolm Price and Tony Smith keeping ahead of Cass as they filled the next three places in that order. Behind Cass it was Pete Boyles followed by Nigel Lawrence. Nigel was in turn ahead of Alec Gilfillan and Keith Chambers. Colin Young followed him home and in fact the last four places were a repeat of the first race. Phil Underwood was behind him and he was in turn ahead of Paul Harris and Steve Jones. After the race I found out that the Katana Nigel had borrowed was running fine but was having a little trouble stopping. This bike was used by Dave Gibbs last Year in the same spec but Nigel found the brakes to be a bit on the dodgy side having a tendency to go for a walk at the most inconvenient times. Nigel would like to pass on his thanks to Clive for the loan of the bike the only problem being that he didn't have time to paint it yellow before the race. From talking to people after the race it became apparent that both races weren't without incident for many people. There were LCs on the back of the grid including a couple of non championship YPVSs. These usually have a delayed start, but this time it was a straight start for all. This resulted in some of the LCs becoming involved with quite a few of the Earlystocks machines. The impression I got from various sources was that quite a few formed the opinion that a certain few on the LCs/YPVSs seemed quite prepared to put someone off the track if they were having difficulty in getting past. There were quite a few incidents including people being forced onto the grass half way down the main straight by a machine that wasn't quite as quick as the rider thought and a reoccurring move every lap towards the hairpin that nearly forced one of the Earlystocks bikes into the wall. Eventually the time came when they touched in the second race and unfortunately it resulted in one of them hitting the ground. All I'll say is that we had no one fail to finish. Even Nigel who was making sure to not spoil anyone's race due to his lack of brakes was chopped by one of them even though he had moved over and waved him past. We will ask for a split start if we have LCs on the back of the grid at any future EMRA meeting but if we get good enough entries we will get a grid to ourselves. If we can't get a split start at least people will be prepared, I'd better say no more. Steve Bailey. |