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The 8th round of the championship was held at the Bank Holiday Derby Phoenix meeting on 26th May at Mallory Park. At the closing date we had only 13 entries and although we expected to get a few more than this, we did agree to the small number of 125s and singles entered with the Phoenix club to go on the back of our grid. This decision has to be made very soon after, if not on the closing date and as we expected, we got late entries. What we weren't expecting was to get a total of 28. Due to the singles and 125s, there were only 27 places and as a result Mostyn Bullock ended up as a reserve. On the Monday morning, the paddock was quite full to say the least but one thing it wasn't full of was anyone selling items such as race numbers, oil etc. Quite a few found this out the hard way, leaving them running round for race numbers etc. The only thing being sold was tyres, but even then only modern 17" fitments Eventually everyone found what they needed in time for practice, but things soon started to go wrong as the Husqvarna of Richard Digby decided to strip a couple of teeth off second gear. This did however mean that Mostyn didn't have to wait around wondering if he was going to be able to get out. When racing did get underway it soon became clear that this was a Phoenix meeting just in case anyone had forgotten and the first four races were all red flagged at Edwina's. I heard one was even stopped twice. This was of course in addition to the people who fell off at other locations without the red flag being needed. The accidents continued to mount up and it seemed to take forever to get to the Earlystocks race that was number 13 on the programme. When it got underway it was already 2.40pm and as usual it was Nigel Lawrence and Andy Jackson who made the break from the rest of the field but it was Andy who had the upper hand. Mind you it was close all the way until the last lap when there was a bit of a moment at the hairpin that allowed Andy to get well clear. Nigel was judged to have fallen at the hairpin and was therefore disqualified from the results. This was confirmed despite an appeal. With Nigel out of the results, Clive Wadey took second place on his 1100 Katana ahead of the RD400 of Glenn Graham and the XJ620 of Mel Coote. Adrian Sanders on his RD400 followed him home and he in turn was ahead of Tony Smith's GPZ750. Simon Briggs was the next to finish on his XJ550, ahead of Malcolm Price's GPZ750, and the GS1000 of Mostyn Bullock. Cass followed Mostyn home ahead of the GPZ750 of Barry Swailes. Barry was in turn ahead of the GSX750 of Keith Chambers. Paul Paynter was the next to finish on his production RD400 and he was ahead of Pete Boyles whose XJ550 wasn't quite running on all four all of the time. Phil Underwood's GT500 was the next to finish ahead of Pete Mabberley's GS1OOO. Jayne Spooner followed him home on her GSX40OF and she was in turn ahead of Paul Harris on an RD250 and Howard Friend on his Morini 350. Rob Patterson, RD400 followed him home and he was in turn ahead of the KR250 of Steve Jones. Out of the 26 who made it out onto the grid, there were only 21 official finishers. In addition to Nigel who struck problems at the hairpin, Michael Burrows and Mark Wootton struck problems at Edwina's. Mark went down under braking, or at least thinks he did as he can't remember too much about it. Michael Burrows on the other hand lost it on the exit. Nigel and Michael escaped unscathed while Mark although escaping anything serious wasn't quite so fortunate. He ended up feeling rather second hand as if he had just bounced down the track on his head, which considering that's what happened isn't to surprising. Rob Thorpe failed to finish as his GT500 let him down when it tried to hole one of its pistons. Rob caught it before it actually holed but the damage was done. Rob Eley also failed to finish, as it appeared the oil leak that seems to plague it had struck again. There are suggestions that Mr Eley's GS1OOO might not fully comply with the club rules as rumours are beginning to circulate that he has got hold of some early GSXR prototype engine that was dropped from planned production when Suzuki realised that if they were to continue developing oil cooled engines, the cooling would have to be done internally. There were just too many problems with the total loss external system that Rob's machine appears to employ. The second half of the programme ran much better than the first and perhaps surprisingly it was only 5.09PM when the second race got underway. Again, it was Nigel Lawrence and Andy Jackson who led the field and after a very close run battle it was Andy who took the win by 0.1 second. These two were well clear of Clive Wadey who was in turn ahead of Mel Coote. Adrian Sanders followed him home and he was ahead of Simon Briggs, the first of a group of five riders covered by less than 2.5 seconds. Glenn Graham followed him home and he was in turn ahead of Barry Swailes, Cass, Malcolm Price and Mostyn. Mostyn was followed home by Keith Chambers and Pete Boyles. Paul Paynter was the next to finish ahead of Pete Mabberley and Phil Underwood. Jayne was close behind Phil and ahead of Howard Friend and Paul Harris who was back out after his spill at Edwina's in the first race. Rob Patterson was the next to finish, ahead of Michael Burrows and Steve Jones. Steve Bailey. |