What a way to end the season! A big entry enabled us to put on 46 closely contested races over the two days on one of the finest motor cycle racing circuits in the country.
We had thirteen new lap records and some very close, exciting wheel-to-wheel racing with some nail-biting photo-finishes. It is very difficult to decide, but the two ‘Men of the Meeting’ must have been Harley Rushton who rode his “Norton Craven Manx” to four wins and four new lap records and Chris Firmin whose “Molnar Manx” carried him into first place in five races together with a brace of new lap records. None of these wins came easily; there were strong challenges from Andy and Richard Molnar and from Bill Swallow – who started the weekend as he intended to continue with a victory in the first race of the day. For once, Mike Powell did not have everything his own way in the Bantam races as Tom Snow was really on fine form with two wins and a second place.
In the pre-1948 class, Mike Farrell and his 1933 Rudge were denied a clean sweep by Bill Swallow in the fourth race of the weekend.
Sidecar and 3-wheeler races were well supported and fiercely contested with the supremacy of big Vincent’s being challenged by BMW’s with the Quirk’s Vincent and Eddie Wright’s Bee-Emm dominating proceedings. In the Sidecar races, it was an all-BSA weekend with the ‘Broadstock BSA’ of Steve Stevenson taking the flag in the first race, The BSA outfit of Philip Holt claiming victory in the second and our Dutch visitors, Willem and Michel Leeflang carved a path through the field on the last lap of the third race to power their Windle A65 to the flag.
Scooters never fail to provide exciting racing and it was Ryan Saxelby and Joe Ravenscroft who were among the star performers with a new lap record being established in the first scooter race of the weekend by Ryan. Competition was so fierce that the first three finishers were all within the ‘old’ lap record time. There was a repeat performance later in the day when Ryan JUST “pipped” Joe on the line in a photo-finish. Sunday saw a continuation of the battles with more lap records and ferocious battles between Joe and Ryan.
The ‘Zips’ scooter races are interesting in that almost the entire field will make a ‘clean start’ – it’s the corners that sort them out ! Craig Bewey’s ambition for a clean sweep was dashed by his retirement on lap 3 of the final Zips race of the weekend which gave victory to Stuart Day and a photo-finish for second place between Damon Tunnicliffe and Ryan Clipstone.
Three cylinder monsters dominated the first BEARS race with Christopher Chapmen keeping his ‘Rob North Triple’ in front of Tim Wooley’s ‘Rocket 3. Ben Kingham brought ‘The Brick’ out to play in the second race and took the flag from Tim. On Sunday it was Christopher Chapman’s turn with Kingham’s BMW ‘Brick’ in hot pursuit.
This was a cracking weekend’s sport in ideal weather on a magnificent circuit and a fitting conclusion to a splendid year’s racing from VMCC British Historic Racing.
