Sunshine on Saturday morning greeted the largest entry of 250GP riders on the dawn of what promises to be a Championship full of thrills, spills drama and excitement all worthy of it’s National title.

The warm up sessions kicked the series off without a hitch but come timed qualifying, the drama began. Chesterfield ace Ben Johnson on the DoubleMracing RS Honda settled the quickest and went fastest early on in the 20 minute qualifier. But within 5 minutes the Honda had highsided Ben at the tricky Clark Curve – thankfully without injury – but a reminder that Johnson’s early season form was not enough to gift him the National title.
Bruce Dunn had a disastrous time when his TZ’s battery gave up and the machine would not fire up guaranteeing his back row start.

Jason Davies secured pole on his Yamaha with a 49.62 lap ahead of Johnson on 50.19, plus Chay Newton and Andrew Sawford completing the front row.
The 18 lap Championship opener on Saturday afternoon saw the drama continue. With a bad start, Jason Davies settled into 5th place from pole but, in his words “too much gas” at the first left hander of Graham Hill bend saw the Yamaha spin up and spit Jason over the top side, again and thankfully uninjured but a definite zero points in the bank.

The race settled into a titanic battle between Chay Newton, riding out of his skin on the aging Yamaha Ben Johnson and Darrell Higgins with eyes on Bruce Dunn picking off places and lapping as fast as the leaders from the back of the grid.

But all was in vein as the red flags came out on lap 6 following another heavy crash at Clark Curve involving Peter Henry Cox who required trackside medical attention. The restart was a 12 lap straight race again seeing Newton leading for the majority but Johnson looked comfortable following in second and the decisive move came with just 3 laps remaining to take the first 25 points of the year. A delighted Newton followed home in second, and worthy of it, if you consider Brands Hatch was the scene of his almost career ending crash last year, ruling him out for the entire season.

Bruce Dunn took a very well deserved 3rd following his practice drama, and the very fast Higgins in 4th

The NG Cup was won by a delighted Paul Lumb, the 2007 NG Open 400 Champ. He finished 14th on the road collecting well earned points in the National Championship mixing it with the stars.
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