After a torrid season in the BSB Metzeler 600 Superstock series Leon Jeacock and the BMC Team were back, having fun, smiling and running at the front. Leon the 22-year-old from Nuneaton who has won four class championship with either EMRA or NG over the last four years moved into the National series this season and was tipped to be a rider to watch.
But the best-laid plans sometimes do not work out. Mid season the team lost their main sponsor but Leon battled on and bespite the lack of a big name friends and family along with his loyal band of backers rallied round to keep the young man on the grid. Leon even got noticed by the National series sponsors and was one of the recipients of the Metzeler Racetec Merit Awards.
This weekend at Thruxton saw the “old Leon” turn up, smiling and back on his faithful 2010 championship winning BMC Motorcycles CBR 400 Honda. It took Leon just 4 laps to smash his own A and R Racing F400 class lap record as he dragged away from the opposition to the tune of 14 seconds at the end of the 8 lap final. The battle for second was a race long three-way typical F400 dogfight. Steve Palmer, Chris Beverley and Simon Gates neither gave nor asked for an inch and but Palmer eventually came out on top although they were all separated by just 0.4 of a second at the line.
Jeacock was also out on his BMC R6 and set the fastest time in qualifying to grab pole position in the Air Racing 600 Open. Along side his on the front row though was fellow National 600 rider Tommy Mountain…. BSB 600 Supersport man Jody Lees and fast NG Streetstock champ Matthew Billington. Directly behind him on row 2 was another top National 600 runner Ben Burke. As the lights changed Lees set off like a scalded cat and had a full one second lead at the end of one lap of the 2.35 mile Thruxton circuit on his Midland VW R6 Yamaha, Burke on his Bike Interseptor Seton R6 was in second.
A poor start though from Jeacock had him down in 6th as lap one drew to a close. Leon quickly got through to 3rd but by then he had a 1.5 second gap to Burke and almost 3 seconds to Lees. By mid race Jeacock was with Burke as the approached the Club Chicaine on 6 of 8 he set the fastest lap of the race and was lining up National rival Burke….. but unfortunately for him the red flag came out to draw the race to a premature halt….. the result was called. Lees took a controlled and confident win on the R6, his third make of bike this year after starting on a 675 before switching to a CBR, but obviously happy with his latest Yamaha mount. Mountain and Billington came through in 5th and 6th ahead of a packed final. For his efforts Jeacock was awarded the Rider of the Day which was a very welcome £100 from the Racing Bridewell family. The family would like this to become an annual award in memory of Ollie.
Phil Bevan ended the year with a pair of wins in the Phoenix Open and STP Motorsport Powerbikes but worked very hard for those victories. Jody Lees pressured him pretty much for two thirds of the Open despite his 600 was giving away a fair chunk of bhp to Bevans Phil Bevan Track Days R1. It was in the last couple of laps when Bevan fired in a series of sub 1min 20 laps that he dragged away from Lees and his R6. Behind the top two Roo Cotton, Peter Baker, Mark Compton, Andrew Sawford and Chris Pope fought it out for the final podium spot. Cotton looked odds on, but a mistake on the last lap saw him slip down to 7th as Peter Baker scrabbled through ahead of Mark Compton to get that third spot. Paul Shook on his ZX10 Kawasaki was in great form and had been the early leader. But ran just a few feet wide exiting the high speed Church mid race and hit a bump which upset his bike sending him cart wheeling across the grass followed by the self destructing Kawasaki. Luckily Shook walked away from the incident but the ZXR was beyond repair and Shook would take no further part in the meeting
Cotton on his DTR Racing Spares R1 was in no mood to make another mistake in the STP Powerbikes and after making his traditional good start, along with Mark Compton on the EDP One shot GSXR. It looked like Bevan would have his work cut out with a less than perfect first lap. In typical style though he picked of rival after rival as the race progressed and crossed the line barely a couple of bike lengths in front of Cotton and Compton. Compton had the honour of setting the fastest lap though, no mean feat when you consider that this was his first outing since Mallory Park back in June, due to work commitments and funding issues.
Mark Skinner grabbed a fine win in the Metzeler/DTR Racing 1300 Stretstock on his Cardiff Motorcycle Centre GSXR100 as he punished a final lap mistake by Dan Millard. Meanwhile in the Metzeler/DTR Racing 1300 Stretstock Dean Richards continued his blistering end of year form to take the win by over 20 seconds from Adam Grosch and Justin Collins. Benedict Ireland was once more the top man in the UK Bike Track Days 400 Streetstock on his Black and Blue Racing ZXR 400 finishing a comfortable 17 seconds ahead of Ben Palmer.
Sharing the grid with the big Streetstocks bike we had the MPH Bikes Pre Injection Pre 2001 bikes and Michael Hobbs blitzed the rest on his super quick Bin Club / DCI Refrigeration R1 Yamaha. He took a near 20 second victory over class lap record holder Greg Allsop and two time double pre injection class champion Adam Jeffery. Regular class front runner Phil Hacker had an end of year to forget as despite qualifying well was forced to retire his FJ1100 mid race.
Ben Mardsen ended the year as he started it by taking the win in the highly competitive Performance Red Mini Twins class. Early front runner Matt Page lead for two laps before making an error at Goodwood and crashing his Royal Navy HMS Dragon SV. Meanwhile Sebastian Kelly was setting the hot laps and two laps from the end he set new lap record figures but his very close company from Marsden, Ali Black, Jamie Morris and Ross McLurg. The newly crowned 2011 class champ Ben Masden obviously wanted to end the year proving his championship credentials on his Premier Ink SV650 and duly swept through into the lead at the final Club Chicaine for the win. The top four were just three-quarters of a second apart at the line.
In the bigger capacity but similarly backed Performance Red Sound of Thunder Matt Layt wheeled out his Allstars Skip Hire 675 Triumph to take a fine win ahead of early pace setter Matthew Billington on his My Gosh Photography 675 and Paul Willis on the KTM RC8. These three dragged well clear of the battle for fourth which went the way of Duncan Gibson, just ahead of Darren Rumley, Sam Middlemas and Max Symonds, who was having his debut NG ride on the new 675 that he will race in 2012.
Both Pirelli UK GP45 classes went to the form book with Chris Harrison picking up his twelfth win of the year on the twin cylinder Motobits Aprilia SVX, and Matthew Andrew grabbing the single cylinder class on his Wedds/Ultiscan RMZ Suzuki ahead of racing journalist Alastair Fagan.
Another serial race winner in 2011 has been Dan Jackson, he racked up his ninth win of the year in the Gofasterbits.co.uk 450 open on his Team Sigie TZ250 Yamaha getting the better of Lee Goddard who was having a great meeting, and infact set the fastest lap of the race and Mark Linton on his Whopping Organ Racing TZ (…….mmmm maybe a team name rethink Mark!).
15 year old star Jake Bayford took a superb end of year win on his RS125 in the 125 GP class fending off the challenge from Andrew Fisher and Gavin Perkins. Perkins was unlucky not to be part of the race for the win after his bike failed in the qualifier, forcing his to start from the back of the grid. Although that third place did secure him second spot in the season long championship behind Jamie Ashby, who struggled for top speed at Thruxton on his Honda.
In a rare 2011 outing 2009 and 2010 series runner up Thomas Williams wheeled out his elderly RS125 Aprilia in the Steve Lynham Formula 125 class. He duly took the win over Connor Moody and James Nagy and much more recent spec Aprilias to prove he still has what it takes.
As ever at Thruxton we saw a packed grid of CSC Racing Sidecars. In a crazy set of circumstances the two fastest crews Roger Lovelock/Rick Lawrence and Ben Holland/Lee Watson ended the race passengerless as both Lawrence and Watson ended up on the Thruxton Tarmac. This gave us the thrilling prospect of the top British and Euro series pairings starting from the back of the grid in the CSC Racing Open Sidecar final. As the lights changed Lovelock was in no mood to wait for the gaps to appear as he set about carving through the 20 odd outfits ahead of him.
By the end of lap one the former European champs has carved through to lead across the line on the BB Bike Shop RDS LCR Suzuki. Holland and Watson did not fare so well and were forced to retire to the pits after Watsons injuries from the earlier spill proved too much. Lovelock piled on the laps and took the win by over 25 sconds from Rod Robinson and Roy Farmer.
Team Mad Cow pairing Miles Bennett and Julie Hanks-Elliot eventually came out on top in a race long battle for CSC Racing F2 class honours over Wayne Lockey and Steve Clements.
This meeting also played host to the Classic Sidecars and Clint Faulkner and Ben Gray got the better of the other1970’s outfits on the Hyperian Hillman Imp 1040cc machine.
The packed race programme eventually got completed despite having to delay the start of the final race of the day due to the low sun !!!!!!. The riders sat patiently waiting for the huge Autumn sun to dip down behind the grandstand at Club. Scott Pitchers took that final race of the NG year on his R6 Yamaha in front of his massed rank of supporters at the Club chicane, all resplendent in Scott 111 Pitchers team T shirts.
……… and so endeth another season.
Click the link below to download the results
