Words and pictures : Rob McDonnell
The hard and fast going of Grittenham proved ideal for George Callaway on Sunday when took victory in round two of the NORA MX Pro Championship class.
The RPG Yamaha rider showed his intent from the off by topping qualifying, then in the first race setting the day’s fastest lap as he came through the pack from last to fourth following a crash in the whoops.
In the remaining two races he moved to the front relatively early taking 11 and five seconds wins – and again setting the fastest lap – to secure a three point overall win from Luke Cooper.
KTM mounted Cooper looked fully recovered from his recently dislocated hip while winning the first race by 3.6s. He backed that up with second and fourth.
Cark Bunce – who holeshot all three races on his new RMZ powered Handy Suzuki – took third overall thanks to a 2-4-2 and gave Callaway a good run for his money for much of the third race.
In the Pro B Class Josh Waring bounced back from a first race crash to win the remaining two races and take the overall.
In the Clubman class young Welshman Dafydd Davies was in cracking form, winning all three races by a country mile. His smallest winning margin was 25 seconds!
His KTM team-mate Tom Chell took second in the opener and was fourth in the second, but a mare of start in the final race left him down in 10
th at the finish, dropping him to third overall behind Kyle Hawkes who went 5-2-2.
Miles Woodward dominated the Clubman B class, with three class wins, and a fine brace of sevenths in the overall group.
In the Masters Ed Davies once again dominated proceedings with three wins – but for the second round in a row the racing behind him in the 31 strong group proved excellent.
Darren Bridge (2-3-2) and Gary Aldington (3-2-3) shared the remaining podium places, while Gary McKenna was the leading Group B rider in 11
th overall after taking three class wins.
However, with semi-retired British Champion Paul Winrow joining the Master class at the next round the days of runaway Davies wins should be in the past!
In the 250 youth race victory went to Scotland’s Lorne Sinclair, which should have made the 10-hour drive back to Oban more bearable! He went into the final race neck and neck with Ayrton Knowles after each had taken a win and second place and in the third the pair served up a good battle with Sinclair eventually winning by 3.5 seconds.
With first round winner Olly Martin’s engine seizing in race one the way was open for another name to take the final podium spot, and 250 Modified rider Harry Carmichael duly obliged thanks to a battling 5-3-3- against the faster Open machines.
Daniel Hares and Bradley Lightfoot again duked out the 250 Standard class each notching up race wins, while Josh Birch took the 150 Open class thanks to three victories.
The 100 Group threw up some brilliant racing, not least of all the first race which saw Tom Fitzgerald hold off a race long assault from Robbie Wood to eventually win by just two seconds.
Alfie Walker had initially been amongst the leading battle but dropped back by the flag. However he well and truly found his legs in the remaining races to win them by eight and six seconds respectively to take overall victory.
Lewis Humphris won all three Raptor races; Logan Paxton won the 50cc class and Aled Davies the 100 Standards.
* Entry for the three round of the NORA MX championship at Pontrilas (HR2 0BG) on April 26th should be open
on the club website from tomorrow (14th April). Awesome track. Don't miss it!
** Plus watch out for NORA race reports on
www.quad-online.co.uk and in TMX later this week. Same report, but lots of different pictures.
RESULTS: PRO: 1 George Callaway, 2 Luke Cooper, 3 Carl Bunce, 4 Sheldon Seal, 5 Oli Sansom, 6 Bailey Edwards.
PRO B: 1 Josh Waring, 2 James Bevan, 3 Callum Bates, 4 Jack Naylor, 5 Jordan Hickman, 6 Danny Smith.
CLUBMAN: 1 Dafydd Davies, 2 Kyle Hawkes, 3 Tom Chell, 4 Josh Kirby, 5 Joshua Crane, 6 Kieran Heath
CLUBMAN B: 1 Miles Woodward, 2 Bradley Cockrem, 3 Harry Grant, 4 Marco Zaffino, 5 Dean Porter, 6 Jacob Woodward.
MASTERS: 1 Ed Davies, 2 Darren Bridge, 3 Gary Aldington, 4 Darren Hunt, 5 Ray Burling, 6 Mark Stepney.
MASTERS B: 1 Gary McKenna, 2 Shaun Eaton, 3 Marcus Knight, 4 Andrew Willcock, 5 Dave Lickfold, 6 Pat Carr.
250 GROUP: 1 Lorne Sinclair, 2 Ayrton Knowles, 3 Harry Carmichael, 4 Jack Norris, 5 Connor Paxton, 6 Harry Ruby.
250 OPEN: 1 Lorne Sinclair, 2 Ayrton Knowles, 3 Jack Norris, 4 Connor Paxton, 5 Harry Ruby, 6 Kieran Taylor.
250 MOD: 1 Harry Carmichael, 2 Iestyn Rowlands, 3 William Booth, 4 Catrin Davies, 5 Alice Kirby, 6 Scott Berlyn.
250 STANDARD: 1 Daniel Hares, 2 Bradley Lightfoot, 3 Joseph Dukes, 4 Josh Talent, 5 Shanice Mott, 6 Vassna Willcock
150 OPEN: 1 Josh Birch, 2 Shelley Smart, 3 Terence Palin. No other finishers.
100 GROUP: 1 Alfie Walker, 2 Tom Fitzgerald, 3 Robbie Wood, 4 Marcus Sprason, 5 Luke Berlyn, 6 Lewis Humphris
100 GEARED: 1 Alfie Walker, 2 Tom Fitzgerald, 3 Robbie Wood, 4 Marcus Sprason, 5 Luke Berlyn, 6 Reece Swann.
RAPTOR: 1 Lewis Humphris, 2 Tom Bainbridge, 3 Callum Lockett. No other finishers.
100 STANDARD: 1 Aled Davies. No other finishers.
50: 1 Logan Paxton, 2 Jago Jackson, 3 Nadine Barnes. No other finishers.