ACU EMAIL HOTTRAX CROFT OCTOBER 4 AND 5
Team Prime Factors Performance House Racing (Stefan Capella/Mick Brown), already sure of winning the 2014 ACU/Sorrymate.com Endurance championship, capped a fine season by winning the ninth and final round of the series at Croft.
They were pushed all the way by the National 600 class champions, Team Edge Racing (Nick Edgeley/Gary Johnson), though, who qualified on pole and crossed the finishing line just under 54 seconds down, after 117 laps of racing.
Third home, also on the same lap, was Wilcock Consulting (Tom McHale/Dan Stewart), a National 1000 team, in which both men were making their Endurance racing debut.
The slender hopes that Team Sorrymate.com (Warren Verwey/Colin Norris) had of retaining the National 600 series were finally dashed when they were fourth home overall and second in the class, to end the year 28 points down on Team Edge.
Team Big Lads (Bob Barton/Laurie Sands/Joe Connolly) was fifth over the line, top Clubman 1000, heading home three teams who had all completed 111 laps.
Next were Big Beak Racing (Richard Charlton/Richard Telford), third in the National 600 class.
Seventh was Team Army 1 (Pete Brown/ Williams), second Clubman 1000 squad home.
They were a lap ahead of another Clubman 1000 team Seven Racing (Tim Forman/Marc Mellon).
Top Clubman 600 was Still Game Racing (James Butterworth/Justin Ganley) in 17th place overall, taking their first victory of the season.
Silicone Engineering (Russ Mountford/Steve Neate) had hoped to do well enough to finish fourth in the big bike series. They qualified second fastest, but big high side left Russ Mountford’s machine damaged.
The team lost at least 10 laps and a succession of blown fuels forced them to retire.
Ryan Gibson (Suzuki), the 20-year-old from Watford, kept his nerve to win the Linxcel Powerbike 1000 series, thanks to double points being award at this round.
Gibson trailed the absent Michael Neeves by 32 points coming into the meeting, but took 126 points over the weekend’s four races to end the season on 428 points, beating his closest rival, Jonathan Lodge (Kawasaki) by a healthy 59.
Kingsley Ruddy, using his new Suzuki, won two races taking his season’s tally to 336, claiming third place in the final standings.
Christian Holt (Suzuki) overturned a 20 point deficit to win the Linxcel Pre-National 1000 Rookie series. He won two of the weekend’s four races and was second and third in others to pip Michael Hogarth (Kawasaki) for the title.
It was cruel luck for Chris White (Suzuki), who topped the standings coming into the meeting. He crashed out twice when well placed and finished third in the final points’ table.
Wayne Humble (Yamaha) had a lead of 104 points over Richard Charlton in the Monex Europe Power Sport 600 championship and a second place followed by a win in the two Saturday races gave him the title, by a slender 4 points from his rival.
The slender lead Tom Boyce (Suzuki) held in the Monex Europe Pre-National 600 class disappear rapidly as his brother Jamie Boyce (Suzuki) stormed to four wins.
Jamie ended on 591 ten ahead Tom, with Daniel Diamond (Suzuki) slipping back to third, with 504.
Mark Dicken’s decision to retire opened the way for Adam Reeve (Yamaha) to win the Modern Classic Protyre Super Sport Pre-Injection class.
Reeve only raced on the Saturday, before driving to Cadwell Park, but he won 90 points to give him a winning lead over Sam Osbouxne. (Yamaha).
Lee Wedge (Kawasaki) needed to win all four Modern Classic Protyre Super Sport EVO class races to stop the absent Jon McNally (Suzuki), taking the title.
He did not and to make things worse, John Bolsover (Suzuki) won all four races to take runner up spot in the standings.
Kingsley Ruddy (Suzuki 1000) was only 13 points ahead of Laurie Sands (Aprilia 1000) in the Modern Classics Protyre Formula One class, but victory in all four races on his new machine finally gave Ruddy the title by 53.
Raymond Stagg won the Protyre Modern Classic Superbike Evo class by an impressive 109 points from Steve Blackwell.
Owen Richardson (Kawasaki 750) hung on to win the Protyre Superbike class, by a slender nine points from Peter Blomfield (Suzuki 750).
Graham Hornby (Honda 1000) won all four Michelin Power Cup 1000 races, to end the season a massive 288 points ahead of the absent Jamal Mahmood.
Stuart Dawson (Yamaha) took the Michelin Power Cup 600 championship to 336 points from Marcus Gearing (Suzuki).
Craig Kennelly (Yamaha) wrapped up the Michelin Power Cup 1000 Rookies class, with four second places, to beat Terry Fuller (BMW) by 19 points.
Marc Ironside (Yamaha) beat Gavin Bartlett (Suzuki) in the Michelin Power Cup Rookie 600 class by 21 points.
Matthew Lawson was already Ducati Desmo Due Class A champion, but the battle for runner up spot went to the last race.
By then Phil Darvulla had cut Kevin Ellis’s lead to just two points, but Ellis take sixth place to finish second in the final standings by five.
Jim Brian won two of the three Class B races, but at the final tally for the season Andy Blomfield came out on top by just a single point.
Andrew Claridge was third,