Snetterton Provides Close Racing for British Motorcycle Racing Club

BG Products MRO Powerbikes

Colin Parker extended his lead at the top of the BG Products MRO Powerbike championship at Snetterton and round nine of the British Motorcycle Racing Club’s season, and is now the odds-on favourite of wrapping up the title with one round to go.

 

Parker arrived at the Norfolk circuit holding a 10-point lead over former champion Peter Baker at the top of the standings, and finished ahead of his rival in all three of the weekend’s races to extend his advantage to 24 points.

 

But it was Baker who started the weekend the stronger of the two, setting the fastest time in a wet qualifying session to start the opening race from pole position on his ZX-10R Kawasaki, with Parker and Joe Morphett alongside him on the front row.

 

However, a poor start from reigning champion Baker allowed Parker to hit the front early on and settle into his rhythm. From there, Parker controlled the race, steadily pulling out his lead at the front to four and a half seconds.

 

Baker recovered to second, after passing Morphett on lap two. The Bike Shop Kawasaki-sponsored rider would go on to finish in third place and complete the podium.

 

In the Clubman class, Christos Bouzoukis took the win in seventh place, doing all he could to delay series leader and title favourite Jamie Tibble, who finished ninth and second in the class, from wrapping up the championship.

 

A better start for Baker in race two allowed him to get away with Parker at the front, and the pair quickly dropped Morphett in third. Parker led the opening lap, but Baker was quick to try and get to the front to prevent Parker from being able to pull away. He took the lead on lap two, but Parker responded a lap later to snatch back the advantage.

 

The toing and froing continued, with Baker back in front with two laps to go. Desperately in need of claiming some points back on Parker, Baker led onto the last lap, with Parker just one tenth of a second behind. But a mistake for the race-leader allowed Parker to slip past and take the win, extending his championship lead by another five points.

 

Tibble raced to an impressive fifth overall, taking the Clubman class win.

 

The third and final race of the weekend saw Michael O’Brien make a lightning start from the front row, quickly pulling out an lead of half a second on lap one, before extending it to a second by the end of lap two.

 

With no one else able to match his early race pace, he stretched his lead to nearly three seconds, before managing the gap in the final few laps to take a commanding win.

 

Behind, the championship battle raged, and it was Parker who again came out on top, claiming second place ahead of Baker in third, meaning the series leader holds a 24-point advantage with just Brands hatch remaining in October.

 

In the Clubman class, Jamie Tibble took another win, and with it the MRO Powerbikes Clubman championship. After taking his first win at Donington Park in April, Tibble has taken 19 class wins to dominate the championship on his Club70 Kawasaki.

 

In the BMCRC Rookie 1000 championship, Kyle O’Donovan scored two wins and a second place to wrap up the title with a round to spare, with the other victory going to Justin Bone.

 

Properly Protected MRO Minitwins

The 2016 MRO Minitwin champion was all-but crowned at Snetterton, with series leader Richard Hickling finishing ahead of his nearest rival, Kurtis Butler, in all three of the weekend’s races, to extend his championship lead to 75 points.

 

The duo battled all weekend long, but in a wet opening race, it was down in seventh and eighth place, with Hickling extending his series lead at the chequered flag by a solitary point.

 

At the front, Glynn Davies assumed an early race lead, but was deposed on lap two by eventual winner James Plummer. Davies was passed a lap later by Lloyd Collins, who set about chasing down Plummer. He reduced the gap to less than a second, but as the pace increased he was unable to match Plummer, who took the win.

 

Collins was second with Davies in a lonely third place.

 

The championship battle hotted up in a dry race two, with the two protagonists fighting for the win. Davies again took the holeshot, but both Hickling and Butler made their way passed on lap two.

 

Hickling held the lead, with Butler trying everything to make his way past. But he was unable to make a move, as Hickling added another 25 championship points to his tally to Butler’s 20, further staking his claim to the 2016 crown.

 

Davies crossed the line just another half a second behind the leading duo to complete the podium.

 

If race two was a close-run thing, it had nothing on the final race of the weekend, that ended with the podium finishers covered by less than a tenth of a second.

 

Hickling led the charge across the line to complete lap one, but Butler knew he had to finish ahead of the champion-elect to have any shot at winning the 2016 title. He hit the front on lap two, and held the position with two laps to go.

 

But Hickling found a way past on the penultimate lap, and was followed through by Davies, who bumped Butler back to third. As the battling trio completed the last circulation, the drag race to the line ended with Hickling taking the win, with Butler crossing the line three hundredths of a second behind him in second. Davies was just another six hundredths of a second further back in third place. The close racing extended down the field, with Plummer bettering Tyler Walsh in the fight for fourth place by half a second.

 

With the Daniel Singleton already crowned the Rookie Minitwin champion, the rest of the field were still out for race wins, with three riders standing on the top of the Rookie podium over the weekend.

 

Gary Carlin took the win in the first race, before James Larter was the victor in race two. The final win in the class went to Marc Cunningham, who beat the newly crowned champion by three tenths of a second to take victory.

 

Chilton Motors BMZRC 250

The Chilton Motors BMZRC 250 series was not due to race at the Snetterton meeting, but with the races cancelled at the Silverstone meeting earlier in the season, the Snetterton meeting served as a replacement.

 

And it also saw Pete Woodall crowned champion after he took two wins, a second and a third to extend his series lead to an unassailable 131 points over Chris Rogers.

 

A wet opening race saw a wildcarding former champion take a dominant win, as Dean Stimpson took the chequered flag nearly 10 seconds ahead of the battle for second. with just two tenths of a second splitting Woodall and Andrew Wales.

 

Race two saw another winning margin of nearly 10 seconds, this time with Woodall taking his first of his two wins. Stimpson took second, with Rogers on the podium in third, after his sixth in race one.

 

Woodall’s second race win came in race three, again ahead of Stimpson, but it was a close run affair, with Woodall snatching it in a drag race to the line on the final lap. Third went the way of Robert Dessoy, who narrowing out-dragged both Wales and Gary Howlett.

 

Rogers finally stood on the top step of the podium in the final race, but it was too late to save his championship chances, with Woodall’s third place securing him the 2016 title.

 

Rogers took the win by one and a half seconds, as Stimpson just edged Woodall for the runner-up spot by three hundredths of a second.

 

EDIasia Formula 400s

Eight points separated the two title fighters in the 2016 EDIasia Formula 400 championship after the final round at Snetterton, with Gary Smith taking the gong ahead of Andy Gill.

 

Going into the weekend 26 points split the two, with Smith holding all the cards. And his job was made easier when Gill failed to finish the opening race as Smith stood on the podium in third place, behind Gary Henning and Matthew Scott.

 

Smith wrapped up the championship in race two, when another third place finish gave him enough points, despite Gill doing all he could and winning the race, as Henning split the pair on the podium.

 

A DNF for Smith in the final race mattered little, despite Gill taking another win, ahead of Henning and Scott.

 

The fight for the Sub-64 class crown was an even tighter affair, as just seven points split Harry Rowlings and Carl Johnstone coming into the weekend. However, three wins for Rowlings saw him crowned champion.

 

Hayden Wood took all three Rookie wins, with new champion Adam Hartgrove absent from the weekend’s action.

 

RKB-F1 & BMCRC Sidecars

Both the F1 and F2 sidecar championships are set to go down to the final round at Brands Hatch, but it was a tale of two different fortunes at Snetterton.

 

In the F1 class, Gary Smith and Ryan Anderson extended their series lead with a third in class in race one and two seconds, while in the F2 class Simon Gilbert and Carl Morgan clawed back more than half the deficit to series leader Brian Ilaria, who had Harry Payne in the chair over the weekend.

 

In race one, Barry James and Jack Tritton took the F1 and the overall win, with Gilbert and Morgan on the overall podium in second, and top of the F2 pile. F2 runners Marc and Rik Vannieuwenhuyse finished third.

 

Smith and Anderson finished third in the F1 class, with fellow title contenders Shawn and Anthony Hildige fourth in class.

 

It was an all F1 podium in race two, with James and Tritton back on the top step, followed by Smith and Anderson and the Hildige pairing. Gilbert and Morgan took the F2 win in fourth overall, with Ilaria and Payne third in class.

 

James and Tritton completed their clean-sweep of victories in the final outing, again ahead of Smith and Anderson and the two Hildiges.

 

The F2 win again went to Gilbert and Morgan in fourth overall, as they crossed the line ahead of Ilaria and Payne.

 

With one round to go 75 points splits the two F1 championship contending outfits of Smith and Anderson and Hildige and Hildige, while just 22 points separate Ilaria and Payne and Gilbert and Morgan.

 

Team Respro MRO 600s

Grant Newstead secured the Team Respro MRO 600 championship at Snetterton, as he extended his series lead to 106 points over Dominic Pettit, with only 100 left to play for.

 

However, both the major championship protagonists struggled in the wet opening race to the weekend, with Newstead down in ninth place, while Pettit’s championship hopes suffered a real blow, as he finished outside of the points in 16th.

 

The win went to David Tinkler, with Ed Pead second and Ben Cotgrove in third and leading Clubman.

 

Newstead, while off the podium in race two, again finished ahead of Pettit to put one hand on the championship, the pair finishing in fourth and fifth respectively, with Pettit taking the Clubman win. Stephen Draper took the win, with Tinkler and Pead again on the podium in second and third.

 

Tinkler took the spoils in the final race, with Newstead sealing the championship with a second place, as Pettit took third and another Clubman win.

 

Richard Tyrer was claimed a Rookie win in the opening race, with Adam Hartgrove taking a brace of class wins.

 

Steve Jordan Motorcycles BMCRC Thunderbike Extreme

Despite Jason Byard already crowned the BMCRC Thunderbike Extreme champion, he still signed off the season with two victories from the three races at Snetterton.

 

He had to settle for second place in race one, with Paul Newman storming to a dominant win. Steven Topping crossed the line in third place.

 

Byard's took a brace of victories from the weekend’s remaining races, his first ahead of Newman and Topping, before he bettered Matt Hinnells and Rob Williams in the final race.

 

Steve Jordan Motorcycles Thunderbike Sport

In the Thunderbike Sport series, which had already been won by Andy Gill, Jack Wallis, Mark Trowell and Colin Walkey took a win apiece.

 

Wallis was the victor in race one, crossing the line ahead of David Carson and Mark Williams, before Walkey took stood on the top step of the podium after race two, flanked by Trowell and Carson.

 

Trowell and Walkey reversed positions in the final race, with Rookie Tony Coe impressing in third place.