The Wirral Hundred club is synonymous with early season race meetings at Anglesey and the meeting on 19 & 20th March saw dry, sunny but somewhat chilly conditions, only a handful of fallers, no serious stoppages, and some great racing. The only concern was the disappointing level of entries.
The
AS Racing Club Supersport class (formerly Formula 600) saw the biggest grids and probably the best racing of the day, with the evergreen Adrian Kershaw taking narrow wins in the first three races from W100’s 2021 champion Barry Dimelow, but a red flag in the fourth race brought a premature end with the positions reversed. Young Irishman Eoin Collins was the best of the rest. For 2022, pre-2011 machines have been grouped into a sub-class to encourage riders of older machines, and Glenn Walker (3 class wins) and Josh Potts (1 win) took the honours this time. It was not surprising that Kershaw and Dimelow shared the honours with a win apiece in the
Anglesey Vans Senior Open races, and it was good to see that Jay Dunn, a former national and European contender, returning to the sport for his first meeting in 9 years, take a 3
rd place.
With trophy sponsor Carl Roberts absent through illness, it was fitting that James Chawke, a former Manx Grand Prix winner and one of his supported riders, should win three of the
Carl Roberts / Emjess Racing Powerbikes races. Mike Bampton narrowly but impressively won the first race on his ZXR750 before some technical problems set in. Paul Sommerville took advantage of Bampton’s woes and took three 2
nd places and his first W100 trophies
Barry Furber, a former W100 Twins champion, returned to the fold aboard one of the new Yamaha R7’s and in all four races was a little too strong for Max Dixon, who finished 2
nd in the championship in 2021. The 3
rd positions were shared by Liam Chawke and Ryan Strafford. The Twins shared track-time with the riders in the
Creation Campers Golden Era Supersport class, and once again the multi-times Club champion Tim Bradley dominated and won each of the four races comfortably; each time Matthew Jones (the one from Halifax) was second.
The 100-500cc Allcomes races had an interesting mix of riders and machines, with the experienced Andy Jackson (TZ Yamaha) taking four narrow wins from the teenager Ted Wilkinson (Honda NSF), who is about to embark on a season racing in the British Talent Cup. There was also a broad age-range behind these two with the 3
rd places being shared by the not-so-young Adrian Morris and two other teenagers - Alfie Davidson (also heading towards BTC) and Oliver Morgan-Edwards. Andy Jackson and Max Dixon (Twins) shared the wins in the two
Anglesey Vans Junior Open races.
Sadly on this occasion there was a particularly depleted grid for the combined Pre-Injection and
Steve Dale M/Cycles Forgotten Era races. Mike Bampton carried on from last year in the PIJ class dominating the first three races from James Leatham both on ZXR750’s, but Bampton missed the fourth race and Leatham took his first win. Dan Hanby won three of the F/E races, with Tim Kermode winning the other.
There was no doubting the quality of the
Chris Forster Open Sidecar races; the crews were having their first outings of the year with many getting in some valuable track time ahead of their British championship series and the TT. George Holden & Oscar Lawrence took the win in race 1 but were then side-lined by an engine failure; Rob Biggs & Jeroen Schmitz won the next two races, whilst Steve & Matty Ramsden won the final race. Club regulars Craig Hauxwell & Derek Taylor and Steve Markland & Owen Rigby filled the minor placings.
W100’s next race meeting will be at Oulton Park on Saturday 23
rd April, when it will be catering for all of its usual classes, as well as hosting rounds of the GP Originals and FSRA Pre-Injection Sidecar championships. This meeting will also feature the David Swallow Memorial Race for classic machines.
Photos by Neil Lambert