After six long years without any two-wheeled racing, the circuit of Rockingham in Corby, Northamptonshire, hosts the Thundersport GB Championships finale on Saturday 17th and Sunday 18th of October.
Rockingham is the first purpose built race circuit in the UK since 1907 and first came to life in January 2001. Since then it has hosted many high profile events and up until now, the international motor sport venue has concentrated mainly on four wheeled racing.
Having travelled to eight different circuits located all over the UK, our final round of the championship will be the first bike racing to take place in the region since 2003, and with many championships still up for grabs, the locals in and around Northampton will be in for a treat on what we hope will be a sunny weekend.
The series that everyone is talking about at the moment is the Aprilia Dunlop Superteen 125cc Challenge. After 29 races in 2009, five riders can still mathematically take the overall title, a stat that has got us searching the record books.
13-year-old Wayne Ryan from Lydd in Kent leads the championship and is clear favourite with a 44 point lead, but if this season is anything to go by, those points could easily vanish if Wayne doesn't play his cards right.
Lee Jackson, 14-years-old from Lincoln, is currently second overall and although he couldn't quite match the pace of Wayne at Anglesey, he'll feel a little more relaxed knowing that statistically, he is the underdog.
Andy Reid from Northern Ireland is third and after taking his first victory at Anglesey since Oulton Park, he will arrive at Rockingham with some new found confidence and could well create an upset if results go his way.
Connor Tagg fourth and Matt Davies fifth could be counted out of the title chase after just one of the four races at Rockingham, the pair are direct outsiders for the championship, but the pure fact that they can still win it, is a good enough reason to not count your chickens just yet.
In the Nitro Newcomers, Tommy Mountain heads a list of young talented riders that could all win the rookie championship too. Tommy has been in devastating form in the second half of the season, and with a 39 point lead, he would ‘in effect’ only need to finish inside the top ten of all four newcomer races to be crowned champion.
Danny Murphy in second, revived his chances at Anglesey with some solid finishes, and is sure to keep his head down at Rockingham and Scott Pitchers, Josh Daley and Joe Ravenscroft could all still take the title, should other results go their way.
Another rider to keep a close eye on, is Chrissy Rouse. After a long season, Chrissy has had an Indian Summer in the Superteen championship and is closing in on that first Nitro win.
In other championships, the 2008 Superteen Champion Fraser Rogers is just one good result away from taking the E2E Solutions GP3 title to add to his GP3 Cup crown he won at Anglesey.
Barry Utting, Ian Popplewell and Craig Morley will all be fighting it out for GiMoto Streetfighter ‘B’ glory, and Tim Jones looks to end his season brightly with the overall win in the Minitwins class.
In the Bridgestone Thundersport 500 class, Jonathan Harrison only needs a solid finish in the first race to take the title ahead of John Butcher. The two John’s have been dominant in 2009 and it seems a shame only one will be crowned at Rockingham.
Elsewhere, all championship wins have been settled and it’s now a case of finding our runners-up and third place finishers, either way, the finale at Rockingham has plenty of juicy action for spectators to feast their eyes upon.
For details on how to get to Rockingham on the 17th and 18th October and for ticket prices, please visit www.rockingham.co.uk
