Tuesday July 24, 2018 at 5:02pm
It seems a very long time since the third round of the East Midland Racing Association championships back at the start of May, since when it seems to have got hotter every day, but as long as the track hasn’t melted round 4 will take place on Sunday 29th July.
Top of the bill as always is the Buildbase Mallory Trophy, with an entry headed by Buildbase Suzuki Superbike rider Richard Cooper. The BSB races at Brands suggested that the no 47 Suzuki didn’t need much improvement (apart from cosmetic after a visit to the gravel trap while lying fourth), but there’s always something that can be tweaked and tested under race conditions. Curtis Wright won all three Buildbase races at round three, including beating multiple TT winner Ian Hutchinson, and he cut championship leader Paul Westerdale’s lead down to 55 points, but even a double on Sunday will still leave him with ground to catch up
Westerdale also holds a healthy lead in the Tamworth Yamaha allcomers series, and although he only won one race out of three in May, it’s fair to point out that two of those were won by Hutchy!
Curtis Wright was completely dominant in the Open 600 races, winning all three by significant margins, and he is now only nine points behind Nuneaton’s Jed Bird in the championship. Louis Dawson’s MV Agusta took a win at the April meeting and is likely to be challenging at the front, while local man Jamie Ashby should be able to capitalise on his experience in the Superstock 600 series.
The EMRA 500 championship races are becoming legendary for the closeness of the racing, and the winning margin in the three CB500 events in May totalled 0.8 seconds, with Ben Bailey winning by 0.6,0.1 and 0.1 seconds ahead of Wayne Sutton in each case. The first race saw Bailey setting up a massive lead of half a second early on and then holding on to it, but the second was a constant swapping of places during which Sutton led on laps 1,2,3,5,6 and 8 and Bailey on 4,7,9 and most importantly-10. In the third race Sutton held the lead from laps three through to nine, but when the chequered flag went out it was Bailey who took the win. While all this was going on Martin Radford and Darren Faulkner were fighting just as hard over third place.
With the current plethora of junior-based classes, Formula 125, GP125, 450s, Moto 3, KTM 390s and now Supersport 300, EMRA have set up a catch-all series of events to cater for all of them, as well as allowing 250 twins, which gives people with an old 250GP style machine to join in the fun. Former EMRA Supersport 600 champion John Lea is bringing his TZ250, there are a couple of 250 Hondas, EMRA 125 champion Gavin Mills has his RS125 to race against Karen England who is currently the 125 championship leader; Lewis Jones has the KTM that have brought him points in four SS300 championship races to date, Jodie Fieldhouse is getting some practice in on her Moto3 bike in between Motostar events, and in the F125 class Martin Tranter will be hoping to continue his winning run and catch Jay Able in the standings, while a newcomer to EMRA meetings is Jamie Hanks-Elliott, who surely should be on something with three wheels rather than two, bearing in mind who his parents are.
James Layton was unbeatable in the Rookie races in May, but still only has half the points total of championship leader Luke Penney who scored a second and two thirds in those races. The rookies were strangely short on numbers in May, but we are back to twenty-plus this time, so the competition will be tough
Closest of all the EMRA championships at this halfway stage of the season is the Lightweight class, where just two points separate the two leading riders, Roger Neep and Andrew Bailey, while three victories in the Minitwins events saw Chris Ashfield extend his championship lead
Qualifying starts at 9.30, racing at around 11.