We are not sure if there was something in the air, or we had upset the God’s of motorcycle racing, but NG Road Racing’s meeting at Pembrey was plagued by all sorts of on track mayhem.
The pattern was set when the first race of the weekend came to the line, and just on the short run from the holding area to the grid three bikes collided and resulted in a delay as the spilled oil had to be cleared up. But that was just the start of things to come.... There were several lengthy race stoppages. One for a major sidecar incident as Martin Kirk/Carl Sache ploughed into pit wall after exiting Honda, and although the bike was in three pieces and had to be dragged away by a tractor and forklift luckily both driver and passenger were walking wounded although Carl suffered arm injuries.
Just two races later we had a four-machine pile up on the grid, with Andy Green coming off worst, but now in recovery. There were countless calls over the radio from the hardworking marshals for “......recovery at the end of the race”. So with almost half of the races on Saturday stopped at least once we hoped for better on Sunday.....but no. It was very much more of the same, but with now severely depleted grids due to all the carnage the day before. Frustratingly several of the accidents occurred on the warm-up laps.
But as I said it was not just accidents, there was plenty of mechanical carnage too......Adam Jeffery had his Camchain tensioner fail and destroy his newly refreshed R1..... Duncan Gibson had his 1098 gearbox break, whilst leading the sound of thunder final with 2 laps remaining. And it wasn’t just the solos, Dean Nicholls ans Anne Garnish were leading the F2 sidecars when their outfit failed..... and Paul Corfield and Ritchie Bleakley had their 6th (!!!) engine failure of the year in the big Suzuki outfit. The lists could just go on and on.
Novice or National rider the problems came thick and fast. Championship leader Matthew Billington highsided off his 675 and into hospital… the same fate befell Phil Hacker......Michael Blank cartwheeled his GSXR to near destruction....even Phil Bevan, the current NG Open Champion and circuit lap record holder was not immune as he suffered and uncustomary oil leak on Saturday on his usually immaculate R1.
Bevan though overcame his early morning oil problems on his Phil Bevan Track Days R1, although he was forced to miss his morning practice session as they worked on the bike. Despite reporting a lack of grip due to a dusty circuit Bevan racked up a series of 59 second laps to take the full set of Phoenix Open and STP Motorsport Powerbike wins. He had to work very a hard though as Michael Blank, Lee Keeble, Roo Cotton and Mark Compton also posted 59 second laps. Both Keeble and Blank looked to have the pace to better Bevan, but as local man Bevan kept up the pressure he just eeked out “a tenth here and a tenth there”. Roo Cotton, although suffering a lack of decent rubber was setting the pace early on until the tyres got hot.
Chris Pope though had one of his best weekends ever as he very nearly joined the 59 gang setting his best ever lap at 60.06 seconds, his runner up spot on Saturday was reward for his hard work. Results list though never tell the full story and if he had been able to run with the leaders on lap 1 he could have come away with some very big points indeed on his AFB Motorcycles R1. As I said earlier Michael Blank very nearly totalled his AFB/TMG GSXR on Saturday whilst challenging fo the win in the STP Powerbikes, but with a lot of borrowed parts and a lot of spannering overnight the team pieced together a bitza bike.
Despite being battered and bruised and with a far from perfect Suzuki he had a storming day on Sunday with a best of close runner-up to Bevan in the Powerbikes after setting the pace for most of the race. For all his, and the teams hard work Michael Blank was awarded the Carless Fuels Vital Equipment Performance Award, which is a can of Carless Racing fuel for the next meeting.
You know when times are financially tough when a class sponsor actually goes out on track to try and win his own money, because that’s what Allan Russell did in the A and R Racing F400.... only joking. Allan who along with Wife Jay run the popular racing spares business at all NG Road Racing meetings and once in a while Allan will wheel out his RVF 400 Honda to have a bit of fun.
Allan has ridden all sorts of bikes ant just about every UK circuit since starting racing back in 1988 on a 400-4 Honda at Castle Combe but he particularly likes Pembrey, so decided to have a run out on the Ricky Leddy tuned Honda. A racer is always a racer and even if you only have occasional outings it only takes a few laps to get back in the groove and Allan who finished on the podium of the1998 Manx Grand Prix was soon on the pace. In the qualifier he came through from the back of the grid to pass all his rivals including current series leader Shannon Hale who was forced to use he old 400 after he number one bike suffered an attack of the Pembrey gremlins and former F400 championship runner-up Tony Meredith.
Almost as soon as Russell hit the front he started to suffer gearbox problems, and the bike eventually lurched to a halt. After a sticking gear selector fork was rectified before the final he lined up at the back of the grid, and by half distance was heading the field to take the win. He backed that up with the win on Sunday too this time ahead of Shannon Hale who was pleased to take a decent points haul on her Black Lion ZXR after her nearest championship rival Tony Meredith was mysteriously absent from the grid. It’s worth giving Max Alexandre a shout as he had his best ever weekends racing with a podium on his Midland Ladders ZXR 400.
Daniel Jackson continued his dominance in the Gofasterbits.co.uk 450 open with another full set of wins. The 24-year old has over 10 years racing experience after coming through the F125 and 125GP ranks. This weekend he had to fend off Sain Brooks who lead the way early on until Jackson got into his stride, and Tom Snow. Jackson from Middlesex is really enjoying his 2011 season on the Team Sigie TZ250 Yamaha, and not only leads the NG450 open series but heads the prestigious 250 GP ACU National championship after 6 rounds.
After the 125GP grid lost Rowan Miller on the development testbed fuel injected Cougar125 after a start line crash that left the way open for Jamie Ashby to take maximum points from the weekend on his RS125. Chris Harrison too took a maximum haul on his very rapid Motobits Aprilia SXV in the Pirelli UK GP45 Twins class. Whilst Matthew Andrew did the double on his Suzuki in the Pirelli UK GP45 Singles despite some very close attention from Max Symonds who was riding the NG owned guest bike.
Symonds though had another focus for the day, and that was to continue his title defence in the Steve Lynham Motorcycles F125. Max and Bradley Jones were easily the top two, with the pair swapping places all day on Saturday. Max took the win by a whisker (0.02sec). In the latter stages of Sunday’s final Max played the backmarkers better and broke the tow, and despite Bradley setting his best laps of the weekend Max took it by over 4 seconds at the line on his Shaun Wynne backed RS 125 Aprilia.
Matt Page had an outstanding weekend on his HMS Dragon liveried Royal Navy backed SV560 Suzuki as he took both Euro Auctions Mini Twins finals from series leader Ben Marsden. He also took maximum points in the Mini Twins Newcomers where he dispensed with current title chase leader Wayne Axon and Dean Harrison.
Duncan Gibson had a 6-second lead in the Performance Red Sound of Thunder final on Saturday and looked set fair to get his title challenge back on track. Then though the bad luck that has dogged Gibson and his 1098 struck again as the big duke got stuck between 5th and 6th gear with 3 laps to go he continued on losing 2 seconds on lap 7... and another 4 on lap 8. Paul Willis swept past on his KTM RC8 followed by Dave Beynon on his 1098 as Gibson pulled in at Hatchetts with one lap to go. Willis took the win from Beynon and Sam Middlemas. Willis repeated his win on Sunday from Middlemas on his 675, but Middlemas now leads the series as we head to his local circuit of Mallory for the next round. Matthew Billington ended with a no score weekend after a two crashes and shoulder injury put him out of the reckoning.
It was Jason Oakes on his Seton Tuning R6 that came through the mayhem that was the first corner of the Air Racing 600 final on Saturday as we saw Garry Lucitt, Chris Beverley and Kevin Kearney..…all potential winners, taken out. 2010 newcomers champ Darrel Jones came through in second with Tom Russell third. Beverley was especially miffed at being taken down after he had lost good points at Cadwell for a similar reason. So when the 600’s came to the grid on Sunday afternoon, Beverley a former F400 champ with NG was in no mood to take prisoners and set off at pace, and never headed. Behind him Oakes, Middlemas, Jones and the hard-charging Dylan Roberts. Oakes leads the series after Jody Lees was away at Croft for the 600 BSB series.
2008 British and European Sidecar champion Simon Gilbert, with Jon Allum in the chair totally dominated the CSC Racing Open Sidecar races winning by over 20 seconds each time on the Paul Gilbert Gas LCR R1 Yamaha. To be fair several of the other top crews were already Isle of Man bound, but Gilbert really looked to be enjoying himself sliding the outfit about and laying big black lines out of the turns. Newcomer pairing of Rupert Archer and Jason Grimes upped their game to rack up some very good points to elevate themselves up to 2nd in the series with two podium finishes on the Hannifin.co.uk Suzuki. Ralph Remnant and Ashley Moore got a maximum point’s haul in the CSC Racing F2 Sidecar after engine problems put Saturday’s early front runner Dean Nicholls and Anne Garnish out of the reckoning.
Ben Marsden had another unbeaten day in the UK Trackbike Days 400 Streetstock on his GF Racing 400 Honda heading home the all action Luke Collins on Saturday and Joshua Jones on Sunday. At one point it looked like Jones might have the measure of Marsden, but a couple of mistakes put paid to his challenge.
Tom Louth riding the Mark Cramer R1 Yamaha took both Metzeler/DTR Racing 1300 Streetstock finals after getting the better of series leader Philip Evans. Evans had destroyed his GSXR100 the week previous and had spent the whole week repairing and rebuilding the bike, although it just did not feel right on Saturday. So with borrowed bits from Shaun Wynne and set up help from Shaun Hennessey the managed to lap quicker, but it was still not enough to get the better of Louth and his R1 although he still heads the series. Evans on the SWM Racing Gixxer thou though was untouchable in the April UK Open Newcomers where he got the better of Murry McConnachie and Tom Louth to extend his lead in that championship.
After Matthew Billington highsided out of the Metzeler/DTR Racing 700 Streetstock final on Saturday the door was left open for Darrel Jones to take both points scoring races and now top the season long points table.
Adam Jeffery finally ended the long wait for his newly refreshed motor for his 2000 spec R1 in the MPH Bikes Pre Injection class and promptly put it to good use beating his main rival Phil Hacker with his FJ1100. However Jeffery went out for so extra laps in the Powerbike and the engine let go….. he was gutted and thought that his title defence was over. When he got back to the paddock former club champion Joe Symonds came over to see what the damage was, and offered to swap Jeffery’s old R1 motor into his better chassis. Joe spannered deep into the night, and Adam repaid his hard work by taking the win on Sunday after Hacker made an uncharacteristic mistake as he highsided out on lap one at Hatchets hairpin…… so I told you there was a lot of crashes and incident.
And finally after all the delays on Saturday the rescheduled April UK 500 Newcomers arrived at the grid on Sunday and Paul Annetts took his GP45 YZF Sturmey Talon Yamaha to a convincing win.
……. So after two very long days, when the doctors, marshals, circuit staff and officials were kept on their toes everyone was relived when the chequered flag fell to end the final race. There are many tales of riders woes and how big the repair bills are going to be….but we will all be back on track at Mallory on 5th June ready to do it all again
