Monday September 27, 2021 at 10:59am
The British Motorcycle Racing Club heads to Brands Hatch on the weekend of 2nd/3rd of October for the last round of the 2021 BMCRC/MRO championship season. They’re looking forward to some great on track action with lots of championships still to be decided on the weekend.
Jack Sim took the honour of being crowned their first champion of 2021 at Donington park, while Aiden Patmore, Josh Harvey, James Seath and Rik Ballerini also booked their places for the dinner dance at the National motorcycle museum in November to claim their end of season prizes.
Whilst their championships are claimed there are plenty of others which are threatening to go down to the last race here at Brands Hatch this weekend, not least of which are the Chilton motors MZ's which sees the top 3 separated by 14 points coming into this round. The closest racing of the Donington weekend was provided by these guys, around one second usually covered the top six or seven for the entire race with two victories going to Peter Woodall and one a piece for Andy Wales and Scott Grant. Former champion Chris Rogers was also a regular podium visitor on the weekend. The BMZRC account on Twitter rather accurately commented that it was like watching a Moto 3 for OAP's!
Sharing the grid with Ernst Degners finest at Donington was the Taymar motorcycles Blue Haze GPF grid. Two wins on the weekend aboard the beautiful Cambridge motorcycles RG570 was enough for Rik Ballerini to claim another (his sixth) BMCRC championship. Something the former hair bear has been doing for over 20 years now. Billy Perkins on his TZR250 was the other class winner on the weekend while a couple of Aprilia RS250's also made a visit to the podium in the hands of F400 championship winner James Seath and Mark Haigh.
The other blue haze class goes from strength to strength and a it was a trio of wins for Phil Atkinson in the Inta motorcycle services GP's that saw him get the biggest points haul of the weekend. His wins weren't easy though as championship leader Kevin Wholey and third place man Stuart Hall pushed him all the way to the line in each race, losing out by less than a second each time. The other winner on the week was Rik Ballerini who triumphed over Hall by less than a second as well. As they go in to the last round at Brands the consistent Wholey has an 84 point lead, so a solitary third will see him lift the title. Some more close racing from these amazingly well-presented ex GP bikes is on the cards
Their grid mates at Donington the EDI Asia formula 400 class saw a pair of wins each for James Seath and Mark Thompson whilst James Robinson kept his championship hopes alive with four podium finishes. The biggest cheers of the weekend were saved for the 66-year-old Allan 'crasher' Clark who claimed his first ever pot in over ten years of racing. Unfortunately, he lived up to his nickname on the Sunday. Alan Cooper was a three-time winner in the sub 64 class with Michael Stanley taking the top pot in the other event. Cooper now has an 18-point advantage over Sam Digby Baker.
A trifecta of wins also went the way of title hopeful John Reynolds in the properly protected MRO minitwins with the fourth going to Jake Povah. This pair gave us one of the hardest fought scraps to wind up the weekend and whilst there was evidence of thought and planning going on in some of the other close races this pairing gave us nothing short of a middleweight punch up for the entire event with Cameron Harris in the ringside seat waiting for what seemed like an inevitable knockout. Despite their best efforts they both made it to the line almost intact. The other man who hoped to benefit from the north vs south battle just in front of him on Saturday was reigning champion Matt Wetherell who was the other man on the podium that weekend. Unfortunately, his plan to draft the pair on to the Wheatcroft straight and improve on his first race third place went array as he attempted to board a passing 737 when he launched himself in to a massive highside. The resulting concussion meant that he was a DNS on Sunday. Early season championship leader Dan Harris was well in contention all weekend, as was Cam Harris (no relation) which means we have four contenders for the title here this weekend with others like David Twyford well up the weekend battle.
The team Respro MRO 600's and DART motorsport clubman 600's was another class where we had two different winners over the weekend with Stephen Draper and Michael Mills claiming the top spots. Current MRO champion and points leader Dawid Krawiecki had an inconsistent fraught weekend including one race where he stalled on row two of the grid and caused a heart stopping moment for everyone watching as close to thirty bikes sped past his stationery machine. His main rival this year Glenn Walsh wasn't on the grid come Sunday after an incident in the powerbike race which means Dawid still has a very healthy 84-point lead in the championship. Clubman leader Alex Barker and rival Thomas Bested both had a steady points finishing weekend while Steven Gagg and Tommy Fielding shared the clubman victory spoils evenly. Expect another big grid of eager contenders at the final round
After the great success of the RKB-F1 sidecar revival festival last month at Cadwell it was great to see the always entertaining three wheeled brigade take to the track once again. There were quite a few entries joining us from the Isle of Man at this meeting and unsurprisingly it was TT sidecar maestro Dave Molyneux partnered with Dan Sayle who set the pace in all three of the races he contested on his KTM 890 powered F1 machine. He missed the final event which allowed the F2 machine of fellow IOM residents Michael Jackson and Jake Roberts to lead the way. Paul and Tom Kirby claimed F1 honours in that race while the other F2 winners on the weekend were Gary and Daryl Gibson.
So going in to the final round Paul and Tom Kirby enjoy a 39 point lead over Chris Wright and Paul Bailey in the RKB F1 sidecar title chase. Craig Goodier and Mark Stone have 69-point lead over Charlie Morphett and Will Reilly in the F2’s while Saunders/Hodgson, the Gibson brothers, Jackson/Roberts and King/Sigsworth are just 18 points apart.
Adding to the list of scores to be settled is the fight for honours in the Kawasaki team green ninjas. Both the junior and senior titles are up for grabs this weekend with Jack Kirsch leading the way in the juniors race and Phil Atkinson proving that he's as adapt at four as well as two strokes heading the senior table. This was yet another class that provided close racing throughout the field with no fewer than seven youngsters arguing over the top spot on pretty much every lap. Unlike the minitwins though, these kids actually looked like they were planning ahead. Lennon Docherty planned better than most and gave his rivals a lesson in how to ride the former GP circuit in 3 of the 4 races, only conceding one race to Jack Kirsch all weekend. Fred McMullan claimed a trio of trophies for the dashboard on the drive home while Owen Mellor claimed a pot to give him the family bragging rights on the way home. Proving that 3 from 4 on the weekend was the popular choice Phil Atkinson did just that in the senior class followed home every time by championship rival Danny Huskinson who managed to pip his rival in one race. Konrad Breese and Kathryn Walker evenly split the pots for the last rung in the podium all weekend.
The first of the MRO powerbike races for the weekend saw a great return to form for Michael O'Brien who managed to beat Aiden Patmore by a quarter of second in the first event on Saturday with Nicky Wilson behind them. Kenny Fretwell took the clubman win to give him the championship lead. Champion elect Patmore took no prisoners in the first of Sundays races and claimed the win and the championship in a dominant performance from Stephen Draper and Nicky Wilson. Nick Whitcher took the clubman top spot from Kenny Fretwell.
Determined to go out on a high Patmore dominated the third race of the weekend ahead of Wilson and Tom Norton with Whitcher and Fretwell swapping their results from earlier. Siggs and Halliday took it in turns to take third in class.
Another man who absolutely dominated on the weekend, as he has done all year was newly crowned thunderbike sport champion Jack Sim. He didn't need to win all four races on the weekend and set a new lap record at Donington but that's exactly what he did as he left Elliot Fricker, Adam Jamison and Harrison Day to argue over the remaining podium spots. The sport class races with the rookie minitwins and the trainee axe murderers’ legs over the weekend were won 3 times by Nicholas Baker and once by Shaun O'Reilly. Stephen Perfitt, Tyler Donovan and Adam Forsyth also got some dashboard decoration for the drive home. That's another class that will be settled this weekend. As Baker now leads Adam Forsyth by just 25 points. Steven Perfitt is third 18 ahead of Andrew Flux, early season winner Mark Gillam could also be one to watch.
Jack Sim already had one hand on the Steve Jordan thunderbike extreme championship when the field arrived in the Donington park paddock but his hopes of a clean sweep of races on the weekend were dashed on Saturday when reigning champion Andy Saunders took the first class win of the weekend, finishing third overall in the TBR performance supported event behind the Ultra machines of Josh Harvey and Mark Wilby. Unfortunately, the former multiple BMCRC champion was another one who attempted to clamber aboard a departing TUI flight without a boarding pass as he launched himself skywards as he came out of the Roberts chicane. (Named after the actress Julia I believe). Harvey took another ultra-win in the shortened restart while Wilby and Dinsmore swapped places from the earlier event as Sim claimed the first of what would ultimately be a trio of class wins in the extreme event from David May and James Reveley. It was to be a pair of wins for the newly crowned ultra-champion Josh Harvey (who was also awarded the Rod Harwin racing Rider of the day for his efforts) on the day along with a new lap record while Mark Wilby beat the champ in both encounters on Sunday ahead of Dinsmore and Fearn. David May and James Reveley also claimed territory on the extreme podium on Sunday.
So far this season Jack Sim has stood on the podium at every single race he's competed in. A truly remarkable feat that has rarely (if ever) been matched in the long history of the club. He's thinking of coming out to play with his relatively ancient machinery in the MRO 600's at this meeting as well as his two usual classes. It could be a very busy weekend for the man with two titles.
Another one to achieve what seems to be the easy feat of winning three races in one weekend was DFDS YPM rider Peter Branton. A man who acts closer in age to his race number (19) than the reality only lost out to Scott Carson in one of the four races over the weekend. Championship leader Carson had a difficult weekend with crashes and reliability issues but still heads the table from Doug Edmondson and also has the bragging rights of a new Donington lap record. Alan Cooper was another man who stood on the podium this weekend. This is another one that is still to be settled as we arrive at Brands Hatch.
You'll be amazed to learn that three races on the weekend was also claimed by Seamus McGlynn in the L and W contractors Rookie 1000 races with Lee Grant topping the podium in the Sunday morning encounter. These three wins give McGlynn the title but the runner up is yet to be decided as Michael Clarke and Anthony Hunter are separated by a single point. Hunter, who was making a great comeback from his Cadwell park mishap took two podiums on the Saturday and was awarded the Alan Russell racing rookie of the day prize for his efforts. Michael Clarke completed the Saturday podium climbers, a feat he managed twice on Sunday as well.
Dan Burnham managed to repeat his efforts from Brands Hatch and once again crashed while leading on Saturday morning. This left Ross Clarke to claim the win from Adam Gathercole and Ashley Coid in the morning race while Burnham bounced back in fine style to take the second race of the day ahead of Clarke and Coid. Clarke turned this result around on Sunday morning while Thomas Garner took third. Burnham replied with his second win of the weekend in their last encounter of the weekend ahead of Clarke and Coid Points leader, coming into this round, Matt Pallett had a steady weekend recovering as he is from a shoulder he broke just a few weeks before. He's still second in the championship just 9 behind Burnham
And so we will arrive at the end of another season. Don't forget to book your tickets for the annual dinner dance taking place on 20th November at the fabulous National Motorcycle museum in Birmingham. It's always a very memorable night.