National and Junior Endurance Race – Three Hours

With a grid packed full of talent, favourites Sweatshop Racing (Mick Godfrey/Mike Dickinson) needed 15 points to wrap up the title, taking pole from series returnees Uprite Racing (Damian Rowley/John Crockford), hoping to wrap the National 600 title up this weekend were M & M (Lewis Mason/Robbie Moore) who qualified in third spot.

Crockford built up a respectable lead from Sweatshop, Pit Stop (Mark Affleck/Peter Dilks) M &M, Sorrymate (Richard Dilks/Mark Cooper) TANC (Chris Mason/James McBride), Banzai (Ben Jenkins/Rupert Thompson) Initiatec (John Burr/Arron Harte), Redmond Racing 4 (Tony Rogers/Neil Garnham) and BLDS (Bill Lilly/Jonty Dixon). This lasted 30 mins after which Croc was punted off before handing over to ex World Endurance Championship regular Rowley who came back out in tenth whilst Sweatshop led from Brand Brothers (Martin & Peter) and Visorvision (Keith Flint/Ben Neeves).

After 1 hour Sweatshop were still at the front, on the same lap were the Brands, Pit Stop, TANC and Visorvision. Uprite were up to sixth on the same tour as BLDS, Banzai, RR4, Vendetta (Steve Blakeney/Alan Boyter), Blujets (Carl Hodgkins/Ash Rothwell), Ridgeback (Mark Clark/David Stolliday) and Insignia (Einar Torlen/Rob Loveday). Robbie Moore was off in the wet causing damage to his left wrist, leaving Mason to carry on as a lone rider with the possibility of grabbing a few points toward their title chase. By half distance we had the pace car out and then the sun emerged drying off some of the wet which was just as dangerous as the track was never in a constant condition.

An hour later Sweatshop now held a lap over Brand and TANC with Pit Stop, Uprite and Visorvison all another lap down, just when the Brand Brothers had a crash dropping them down to 12th. Sweatshop, TANC, Visorvision, BLDS and Pit Stop all continued in formation and the only real question was whether Uprite could catch and pass TANC for second spot on the road...the separation came down lap by lap before the black Suzuki passed the green Kawasaki, unknown to most was that McBride was having to watch the temperature of his newly acquired ex Pier Riba works bike and nurse it to the end.

This meant that Sweatshop are the 2011 National 1000 Champions with a round to go. They won on the road and their class 2 laps ahead of one off returnees Uprite and TANC, who were only 0.8s away from the runners up. Ridgeback were fourth in class, 30s in front of BLDS with Well Oiled Racing and Insignia both finishing on the same lap.

Pit Stop capitalised on M & M's rare mishap to win the National 600 class from the charging 1491 with Roundall Racing (Simon Allen/Al Waring) in a delighted third. Visorvision had a great race to pull off a class win in the Junior 1000s after finishing a non too shabby fourth on the road overall. They were a lap ahead of RR4 and Blujets who were apart by a slim 8 seconds. Brand Brothers Racing stayed at the front of their class on the same lap as fellow fallers Initiatec and third spotters Sorrymate.com - all covered by 76 seconds.

MotoGrande 1000 & 600

New face to Hottrax Sam West made a brilliant start and was never heeded in the first eight lap race, another newcomer Ben Scranage slotted into second and had the almost perfect ride to hang onto the runner up spot from the rapid progressing Rhalf Lo Turco who was sixth on the opening lap. Rhalf displaced Andrew Haines who slipped a place whilst championship leader Julian Hughes fell, Haines finished ahead of Derek Gulbransden, Andrew Fenton-Copeland, Adam Reeve, Justin Stephenson and Stephen Bridle. In the second race Hughes didn't take the grid and riders lined up in torrential rain for the eight lap thrash. First race winner Scranage replicated his earlier appearance and began building up a commanding lead over Haines and Reeve who, at full distance led Daughtrey, Bridle, Andrew Duncan and Nick Masterson - the MotoGrande now go into the final round at Snetterton, at the end of October with the title and positions to race for.

In the 600s,  Andrew Nicholson was out to secure the 2011 title and he did enough to do that. Leader on the first lap was endurance man Richard Dilks and made a battle for the lead with Nicholson and Paul O'Connor. Nicholson took over P1 in the middle part of the race before relinquishing the front place to O'Connor who managed to hold off Nicholson from Dilks, Roger Slater, Colin Norris, Warren Verwey and Nick Matthews. For the second race Warren Verwey was first across the line on the opening lap but it didn't take long for Nicholson to take over and start building some space between himself and O'Connor with Dilks not letting go in third spot. Slater was best of the rest from Andy Lund, Norris, Apex man Matthews with Barnes following home.

Desmo Ducatis

Matthew Lawson and Andy Challis had a ding dong battle in Race 1 and after 8 laps were only separated by 5 seconds, these two were ahead of Neil Appleby who has had a brilliant season on the Dukes. Three more Class A machines filled the rest of the top seven in the capable hands of Andy Pike, Dallas Hornblow, Kevin Ellis and West Bridgford rider Steve Hands before the first of the Class B riders - Phil Wilcock.

In the best race of the season it was almost a replica of the opening encounter seeing Lawson taking the chequer less than 3 seconds ahead of rival Challis. In a race that was rain affected and many riders were lost to the gravel, Hands had a fantastic third spot ahead of Pike, Tom Roberts and first Class B machine home with Wilcock on board.

Its another six weeks before Hottrax Motorsport invade Snetterton and there are still championships to be won, places to be settled and fun to be had so make sure you have it in your diary; Racing on Saturday the 29th and Sunday the 30th of October with a test day on the Friday.

Click the .pdf link below to download the results