The Nora-MX club pulled out all the stops last weekend, with its organising team working through the Saturday night, to get the Grittenham track to level suitable for the third round of its 2020 championship.
Competitors arriving on Saturday, viewed the track with some concern as the British weather did its best to turn the Wiltshire venue into a swamp. However, once the hard-working Nora-MX team set to work with the big machinery, the Sunday morning delivered a different scene and competitors were heard to comment on it being the best track so far.
The race day weather held good, and another huge line up of riders graced the Nora-MX start gate as racing got underway across adult and youth classes.
Harry Walker, Dafydd Davies and George Day shared the wins in the Pro class with Walker’s first, second and 12
th just enough to give him the overall on the day by the narrowest of margins. Davies led the opening Pro moto right up until the closing stages, when Walker passed him for the win with Day third. Davies set out his stall though in the second race, taking a flag to flag win ahead of Walker and Carl Bunce. Both George and Tom Day were disqualified in race two for failing to start from the actual start line – a tough decision by the organiser, but the rules are the same for everyone. The brothers regrouped and rectified their zero score though in the final Pro outing, with George taking the win and Tom finishing third. Simon Hammersley put up a fight to the finish to take a well-deserved second. Walker led the first few laps in race three, however, machine problems meant he had to limp to the finish in 12th to get valuable championship points. Davies, who had been second, lost a wheel on the edge of a berm, while trying to get a dry line, which flipped his machine over. Once righted, he coasted home to 13
th. Jack Naylor was the top Pro-Am racer, going one better in each race with overall finishes of 12
th, 11
th and 10
th.
In the fast-paced Clubman group, Alfie Walker dominated the first two Clubman Elite races with Robbie Wood, Dylan McKenna and Danny Smith battling it out behind him. In race three, after some early lap dicing with Walker, a determined Robbie Wood secured the win. Clubman riders Cameron Thompson, Joe Pryke, Daniel Scott Evans and Bradley Watson all featured in the top 10 of each moto with Watson taking an impressive seventh in the last race.
Ed Davies once again took all three wins in the Masters with Chris Keitch, Johnny McKnight and a young Paul Winrow keeping him company. McKnight lost a chain in race one which saw him in an uncustomary last place but he was back on form with podium finishes in the next two outings. Still recovering from injury, Winrow looked to be back on form and Philip Hammersley also featured well in the early stages. Elsewhere in this hard-fought class, Richard Clark was the top Masters B competitor with Matthew Kirk and John Hall rounding out the top three in races one and two. Gary Jones and Ben Morgan were second and third in the final Masters race.
Girl power was a feature in race one of the popular Novice/Intermediate/Ladies group. Shelley Smart took the overall win ahead of Tom Bainbridge and Catrin Davies in the Intermediates, with Will Mead and Myles Mott taking first and second in the Novices and seventh and eighth on track. Bainbridge was back to his winning ways in motos two and three with Davies and Georgia Lent behind him in race two. Dillon Stepney was second in the third race and, with an impressive performance, Novice Mead was third.
In the Youth ranks, Chad Beevers was on fire in the 250s and left the rest of the pack standing with three wins from three starts. Luke Berlyn together with Northern Irish riders Josh McKnight and Ross Dillon were mixing it up behind him with Berlyn taking second, fourth and second, McKnight third, second and third and wringing everything out of his air-cooled against the open-class machines, Dillon bagged sixth, third and fourth.
All three 100cc/50cc combined classes raced the full adult circuit. The races were won by Frank Marston on his geared 100cc, while Louie Holt who usually runs at the front with Marston lost time in the first moto when his machine cut out on him. He made up for it in the following races with two second place finishes. Seth Balaam and Jay Sams on their auto 100s were right in the thick of it with their geared counterparts. Balaam won the Auto class with a third and two fourth-placed on-track finishes, with Sams right with him in fourth, fifth and fifth. Ellie Stott showed the majority of the field her rear wheels with a second and two thirds on her geared machine, while an absolutely on form Harriett Mewse posted results of seventh, seventh and ninth on her little 50cc auto. All participants in this progressively competitive class ride their hearts out and the start line gets bigger and bigger at each meeting. Of particular note are three young ladies who are new to the racing scene; Lillian North, Peggy Hammersley and Poppy Davies – they tackled and conquered the full Grittenham track with big smiles all round.
Commenting on what turned out to be a long weekend for the Nora-MX crew, Richard Shaw said; “We’re all very tired but massively rewarded to see so many happy faces – that’s what it’s all about really, people enjoying themselves. I must give a shout out to Albert McPherson and my son Lewis for working through the night with me to get the track into a rideable condition which ultimately made for awesome racing. We had another great turn out of riders with new guys and girls coming into the Inters, Clubman and Youth groups and we’re grateful to the every-growing contingent of Northern Irish riders making the long journey across to ride with us. It’s good to see riders mixing it up throughout the classes, and a delight to witness the youngsters in the 100cc and 50cc classes improving each round and having a ball. To see little Poppy Davies take on that track in her first-ever quad race was amazing. Can’t wait to get to Brakehill and seeing everyone again.”
Images: John Cook
Words: Jenni Foulkes
RESULTS
Pros
Race1: 1. #7 Harry Walker, 2. #15 Dafydd Davies, 3. #29 George Day, 4. #585 Carl Bunce, 5. #3 Oli Sansom, 6. #24 Jamie Morgan, 7. #47 Simon Hammersley, 8. #18 David Hammersley, 9. #39 Tom Day, 10. #201 Zak Orchard.
Race 2: 1. Davies, 2. Walker, 3. Bunce, 4. Morgan, 5. Hammersley S, 6. #222 James Bevan, 7. Orchard, 8. Sansom, 9. Hammersley D, 10. #5 Harry Miller.
Race 3: 1. Day G, 2. Hammersley S, 3. Day T, 4. Morgan, 5. Bunce, 6. Hammersley D, 7. Bevan, 8. Orchard, 9. Sansom, 10. Jack Naylor.
Clubman
Race 1: 1. #7 Alfie Walker, 2. #6 Robbie Wood, 3. #5 Dylan McKenna, 4. #84 Danny Smith, 5. #153 Oliver Martin, 6. #77 Ryan Walters, 7. #92 Daniel Andrew Jones, 8. #21 Harry Grant, 9. #20 Jacob Atkinson, 10. #59 Cameron Thompson.
Race 2: 1. Walker, 2. Wood, 3. Smith, 4. Walters, 5. McKenna, 6. #125 Josh Talent, 7. #36 Michael Hodges, 8. #6 Joe Pryke, 9. Thompson, 10. #50 Daniel Scott Evans.
Race 3: 1. Wood, 2. Walker, 3. Smith, 4. Walters, 5. Martin, 6. Talent, 7. #24 Bradley Watson, 8. Pryke, 9. Grant, 10. McKenna.
Masters
Race 1: 1. #16 Ed Davies, 2. #7 Chris Keitch, 3. #10 Paul Winrow, 4. #22 Darren Bridge, 5. #2 Clint Eagle, 6. #39 Keith Harden, 7. #58 Shane Orchard, 8. #61 Richard Clark, 9. #6811 Matthew Kirk, 10. #29 John Hall
Race 2: 1. Davies, 2. #99 Johnathan McKnight, 3. Winrow, 4. Keitch, 5. Bridge, 6. Harden, 7. Orchard, 8. Clark, 9. Kirk, 10. Hall
Race 3: 1. Davies, 2. Winrow, 3. McKnight, 4. Keitch, 5. Bridge, 6. Harden, 7. Orchard, 8. Clark, 9. #76 Gary Jones, 10. #53 Ben Morgan.
Novice/Intermediates
Race 1: 1. #666 Shelley Smart, 2. #150 Tom Bainbridge, 3. #69 Catrin Davies, 4. #25 Gavin Roach, 5. #14 Georgia Lent, 6. #112 Jamie Paget, 7. #212 Will Mead, 8. #213 Myles Mott, 9. #18 Nicole Lowry, 10. #29 Bradley Goddard.
Race 2: 1. Bainbridge, 2. Davies, 3. Lent, 4. Mead, 5. Paget, 6. Smart, 7. Mott, 8. #169 Harry Walker, 9. #3 Dillon Stepney, 10. Lowry.
Race 3: 1. Bainbridge, 2. Stepney, 3. Mead, 4. Paget, 5. Davies, 6. Lowry, 7. Walker, 8. #11 Lewis Painter, 9. Mott, 10. Lent.
250s
Race 1: 1. #538 Chad Beevers, 2. #40 Luke Berlyn, 3. #2 Josh McKnight, 4. #16 Aled Davies, 5. #23 Lewis Humphris, 6. #36 Ross Dillon, 7. #14 Andrew Black, 8. #152 Arthur McDonald, 9. #22 Bleddyn Jones, 10. #99 Cai Evans.
Race 2: 1. Beevers, 2. McKnight, 3. Dillon, 4. Berlyn, 5. Humphris, 6. Black, 7. #21 Alfie North, 8. #168 Kieran Marriott, 9. #6 Riley Honor, 10. Jones.
Race 3: 1. Beevers, 2. Berlyn, 3. McKnight, 4. Dillon, 5. Honor, 6. North, 7. Marriott, 8. McDonald, 9. Black, 10. #333 Charlie Wheatley.
100s/50s
Race 1: 1. #4 Frank Marston, 2. #7 Ellie Stott, 3.#888 Seth Balaam, 4. #177 Jay Sams, 5. #16 William Kirwin, 6. #11 Finnley Bedding, 7. #426 Harriett Mewse, 8. #15 Reggie Binskin, 9. #33 Luca Shaw, 10. #125 Amelia Talent.
Race 2: 1. Marston, 2. #30 Louie Holt, 3. Stott, 4. Balaam, 5. Sams, 6. Binskin, 7. Mewse, 8. Bedding, 9. Kirwin, 10. Talent.
Race 3: 1. Marston, 2. Holt, 3. Stott, 4. Balaam, 5. Sams, 6. Kirwin, 7. Bedding, 8. Binskin, 9. Mewse, 10. Shaw.
Individual class overalls and championship positions will be published later this week.
The Nora-MX 2020 Championship next heads to Brakehill, Northants, NN14 3ND, for rounds three and four over the weekend of 12
th & 13
th September.
www.nora-mx.co.uk