Thursday September 17, 2015 at 11:49am
The penultimate round of the 2015 ACU Championships takes place this coming weekend at the National Finals on 19-20th September at Santa Pod Raceway.
Top Fuel Bike.
Rene Van Den Berg won the opening round at the start of the season and has a 230 point lead coming into this event. At the European Finals meeting two weeks ago Berg recorded 6.572 and ran a personal best speed of the weekend 222.26mph. Multi-time ACU Top Fuel Bike Champion Steve Woollatt is in second place and he ran a personal best 6.230 at the European Finals. Nick Milburn is 10 points behind Woollatt and he ran his first 200 mph plus (206.19mph) at the European Finals. Multi-time and reigning European FIM Top Fuel Bike Champion Ian King has entered the event after winning the European Finals and recorded best figures of the weekend 5.900-242.77mph (first European rider to run 240mph plus) and reset the European speed record of 236.21mph.
Funny Bike.
Dave Peters has a 390 point lead over Bob Brooks who ran a personal best et of 7.174 at the European Finals. 2014 ACU Comp Bike Champion Allan Davies is 85 points behind Brooks and is hoping to have his big motor for this event. Stuart Crane ran personal best figures of 7.060-185mph at the European Finals and lies fifth in the table 760 points behind Peters. Filippos Papafilippou will be testing his new bike for next season, ran 7.409 at the Summernationals last time out. Lorcan Parnell will be competing with The Storm bike. It has run low sevens in testing recently.
Pro Stock Bike.
This is the first event for Pro Stock Bike this year. Alex Hope the reigning ACU Pro Stock Bike Champion will be hoping to retain his title after running personal best figures of 7.224-185.89mph at the European Finals. Len Paget also ran a personal best et 7.326 at the same meeting and is very happy with the performance of his new 1640 four-valve motor. Former champion Mark Smith had some problem with his new motor at the European Finals and will be hoping for a better weekend.
Comp Bike.
With three different winners in the first three rounds Kevin Osman leads the field with 1170 points. Mick Winyard is second with 900 points and Eddy Smiley is 10 points behind. Paul Hambridge, Dave Smart and Sean Mills are within striking distance of the top three.
Super Street Bike.
2015 European FIM Cup winner Garry Bowe missed the last round at Shakespeare County, but still leads the championship by 130 points from Alex Hope who is 10 points ahead of Chris Reed. Reigning ACU Super Street Bike Champion Steve Venables is in top form after he ran the first six-second in Europe (6.95) at the European Finals. Rick Stubbins is another rider who could win this event after he ran 7.06 at the European Finals.
Report by Steven Moxley.