Rounds 3 and 4 | Cadwell Park | 16th and 17th April 2016 Seven wins for Dave “Action” Jackson
Lincolnshire plasterer Dave “Action” Jackson consistently put in the fastest laps of the weekend whether it was in the mixed drizzle…sleet…hail and sun on Saturday or the chilly but crisp and sunny weather on Sunday.
His pole time for the Phoenix open was a full three and a half seconds faster than the opposition headed by Max Symonds and Josh Day. Series leader going into the weekend was Josh Day, but his R6 Yamaha gearbox packed up leaving him with no bike and no pointson Saturday. Dave Jackson headed Max and Roo Cotton in race one of the three outings. Race two was on Sunday morning and this time Dave and Max topped the sheets but Josh had borrowed Alistair Haynes’ 675 to salvage third place and 16 valuable points as he battled with Jordan Rushby and Joe Sheldon-Shaw. Race three was another Jackson benefit on his Jackson racing BMW S1000RR to make it three wins from three starts, Josh took second from Sheldon-Shaw with Max struggling after a long weekend in fifth.
Jackson and the big BM topped the Powerbike results too with this time Roo Cotton, Dave Irons, Jamie Goldthorpe, Aaron Staniforth and Mark Sykes squabbling over the rest of the points. Josh Day took Gary Johnson’s bog stock track day bike out for “a-bit-of-fun” in Sundays final and showed what a CBR with some tweaking of the suspension by 100% suspension can do as he grabbed runner up spot just four seconds adrift of Jackson. Roo Cotton with a pair of podiums on his DTR Racing R1 heads the points table with Roo revelling in the fact that he has a truly competitive bike beneath him for the first time since his 125 days when he took that title back in 2003.
AFB Motorcycles Chris Pope had his new R1 gearbox lock up on him on the Friday test day, and his and the teams commitment to the open and Powerbike championships saw them drive the 250 miles from Cadwell back to the AFB HQ in Bridgwater on Saturday morning. They fitted a new gearbox and then turned round to drive the 250 miles back, to arrive at Cadwell in the early hours. Pope had barely a couple of hours sleep but collected a decent points haul to keep him in the championship hunt. It was felt that the performance of the meeting award that normally goes to someone’s on track achievements should go to Pope and the AFB Team headed up by Andy Forbes-Buckingham for their dedication to the NG Championship driving over 1000 miles in three days !!!.
Dan seizes his chance as Phil’s TZ seizes.
Dan Jackson almost did the double in the 250 GP ACU National championship. Race one saw Jackson, the 2012 champion and current champ Phil Atkinson storm away from the rest of the field building up a 20 second lead over Rich Grinling. But after 7 of the scheduled 10 laps there was rain in the air and Jackson on the Team Sigie TZ250 raised his arm to signal to the Clerk of the course. Atkinson saw this and thought that if the flag came out next lap he wanted to be in front……. his plan worked….and an irked Jackson had to settle for second after leading pretty much full race. Sunday was cold but sunny and as The Declans team were warming up Atkinson’s TZ the Yam nipped up and the race lined up without the defending champ. Jackson took a comfortable looking win over Grinling and Dave Hampton who overhauled Darrell Higgins in the latter stages. Former champ Ant Hodson ruled himself out of the action after a Friday test spill, but should be fully fit for Donington Park for the British 250 GP in May. Simon Hunt had his best weekend in the National series with two strong rides on the Pork Pie Racing TZ !!!!.
Bryan and Winn…erm win !!!.
Former British F2 champs Gary Bryan and Jamie Winn had two fairly untroubled wins on the GBM Demolition Baker Honda in the CSC Sidecar class. They headed home Simon Gilbert and Jed Pilmoor-Brady on Saturday in drizzly cold conditions, and Nicholas Dukes and Will Moralee on Sunday when Cadwell showed it’s sunny side. Sundays race however was brought to an early conclusion after in incident with Paul Riley and Tom Bryant, bringing out the red flags resulting in a shortened re-run which was a shame for Gary and Daryl Gibson who were on a charge through eventually settling for third place. Jim Hamilton and Mick Fairhurst was top open outfit on Saturday with fifth on the road, and they were on course to better that on Sunday when the Jebs Performance LCR Suzuki went sick.
Class by class.
James Hinds bagged two wins in the Formula 125 class after series leader Josh Singh ruled himself out after taking a tumble at Barn corner, whilst Jason Whitelam took both 125GP finals on the Burton/Dyson RS125. Tim Bradley continued his dominance of the F400 with another pair of races, but had to give second best to John Price on Sunday and the pair pressured each other him right to the flag. Price bagged both 500 open races on his ZXR400 Kawasaki, both times by a massive 1-minute plus gap. Tony Bridgefoot got his championship charge for GP45 honours back on track with another 50-point haul on his RRV450 Aprilia. They shared the grid with the Formula Prostock that had Andrew Howe on his FZ750 the pick of the pack. Sticking with the older race bikes Mark Ess on his immaculate OWO1 Yamaha and former champion Adam Jeffery shared 1300 Pre injection honours, whilst in the 700 division local man Aaron Staniforth and Brands Hatch Performance of the meeting winner John Wright, both on CBR600’s shared the spoils.
Paul Jeffery took a fine win in difficult conditions on his R1 in Saturdays Streetstock as his nearest rivals Richard Hughes and Jim Walker both took to Cadwell’s grass at the Gooseneck. Hughes the 2014 champ bounced back to take a very narrow victory over Jeffery on Sunday. Justin Collins and Tom Williams shared 700 Streetstock honours but both times the 600cc riders humbled many of the bigger class riders.
Robert Cadiz was one of the stars of the weekend taking both Mini Twins, and both Super Twins finals, and setting a new Super Twins lap record in what were not the best conditions for racing. Tom Blackwell, Wayne Axon and Paul Wardell all took time at the front…..That was until Cadiz got into his unbeatable stride !
Dave Mackay riding the True Heroes 899 Panigale too both Sound of Thunder finals and the Edna Gardner Trophy race as he fought off reigning champ Peter Carr and David Irons on his 1198 Ducati.
Josh Day and Max Symonds had a 6 lap wheel to wheel scrap in Saturdays 600cc open with just 0.03 of a second between them at the flag. Max had had the upper hand for 5 laps but Josh got the drive out of barn for the final run to the flag for the win. Sunday saw no Josh on the grid due to a blown gearbox on his R6, but Max could not take full advantage, as he had to give second best to Joe Sheldon-Shaw.
Martin Cox looks the man to beat in this years Ducati Sporting Club Desmo Due taking two of the three races this weekend, and finishing runner up to Andy Bloomfield in the other. Cox took all three wins at Brands first time out. The 600cc B class saw Peter Pritchard continue his impressive unbeaten run with another triple race win
Lansdowne Classic Series.
Michael Russell took wins in two of the three Lansdowne Classic series races, the third went to Chris Firmin. Firmin on the Andy Clews 500 Manx robbed Russell of the hat-trick as the pair of Manx’s had a drag race to the line after exiting Barn side by side, Firmin the fireman who runs the number 999 !!!!…. took it by 0.04 of a second. All three races were close affairs with Dean Stimpson missing out on race two by just 0.19 of a second. Race two was an eventful to say the least, and could prove vital come the end of the year. Firmin was slapped with a 10 second jump start penalty and Glen English was only accredited with 25
th place after not completing the warm up lap or lap 1 on his SCC 500 Manx. Michael Russell through left Cadwell with an increased series lead in the Bonhams backed series (for full details -
www.lansdowneclassic.co.uk)
Words: Russ Gardner - NG Road Racing Media Officer
Images: EDP Photo News -
www.edpphotonews.co.uk Web Info: www.ngroadracing.org