Thursday May 30, 2019 at 4:32pm
Three stylish victories from Chris Mort maintained his unbeaten run in the 450-1100 Open Championship after the 2nd of four rounds at Tonfanau.
With Mort on an unbeaten 60 the battle is to be runner up. James Evans (Yamaha) is in second place after 3 consistent fourth places but hard on his heels is Grant Gaskell (Kawasaki) on 43 and Jason Wilkes with 42.
Mort ran out easy winners in all three race.
In the first eight-lapper he was over four seconds clear of Wilkes who was on a new Kawasaki.
Wilkes did not have an easy time getting to know the new bike with very heavy rain making it a very wet practice.
Fortunately the sun came out in time for racing and that made life better for everyone.
Wilkes made a terrible start in race one.
But fought back to finish 2nd, over 4 seconds in front of Gaskell.
Wilkes had earned a second place on the grid for race two, but a bad start dropped him down the field. He was up to second place on the last lap when Gaskell out braked him into the Hairpin. Wilkes managed to dive underneath him and the pair raced side by side to the finishing line Gaskell three tenths of a second clear of Wilkes to take second place.
Mort was this time over seven seconds clear of the pack.
Mort wrapped up his hat-rick in the third race beating Wilkes home by over six seconds and setting the fastest lap time of the day.
Gaskell was third home just under two seconds behind Wilkes.
In the Support Classes John Price extended his lead in both the Forgotten Era 251-500 Championship and the 400 Supersport class.
He had no problems with the wet conditions in practice and raced his wet bike to victory in his first SuperSport race.
His next outing was the first Forgotten Era and from sixth on the grid charged through to overall victory and first place for his class. Next time out he crashed coming out of paddock bend. Which resulted in the Race been red flagged.
A quick visit to the medical centre cleared him to race in the rerun where he was second home.
Price won his next three races to end the day 8 points clear of Phill Millard in the Forgotten Era class and four points ahead of Tony Griffiths in the SuperSport 400.
Tonfananau’s fast Lady Caron Roberts finished top of the classic 250 table, 15 points clear of her closest rival David Thorp.
Ian Cowles was the only 50cc competitor at the meeting and took the opportunity to extend his championship lead from 5 points to 35.
Craig Hauxwell (LCR Suzuki) dominated the sidecar class but he was chased home by Bob Berry Jacobs Kawasaki just three seconds back in Race one.
Next time out Hauxwell beat Dave Jones by over 26 seconds and had a comfortable 31 advantage over the opposition in race three.
Another Hat-trick of wins for Martin Clare stretched his lead over Dean Ephgrave to six points in the Steele frame 600 class.
Martin Robbins won all his 3 mini twins races to take his lead over Darren Raybould to 10 at the half way stage of the season.