The Wirral Hundred club’s final race meeting of the year on 29th & 30
th Septermber marked the 26
th anniversary of the Club’s first meeting at Anglesey, and incorporated its now iconic ‘Anglesey Grand’ run over two 12-lap legs of the international circuit.
Paul Bland Motorsport Anglesey Grand
Qualifying practice took place in slightly damp conditions and it was Johnny Blackshaw (Yamaha) who set out his clear intentions by setting a lap-time 1.4 seconds ahead of his arch-friend Adam Jenkinson (Aprilia), the winner of the Grand for the last four years. Manxman Ryan Cringle (BMW) just pipped many times club champion David Jones (Kawasaki) for the other position on the front row.
Blackshaw took full advantage of his 1
st Leg grid position and led for the first ten laps from Jenkinson, with the two never separated by more than a machine-length or two; they then changed places several times during the last two laps until Jenkinson forced his way into the lead at the final corner to win by just 0.14 seconds. David Jones was a distant third, followed by the two fastest 600’s, Jamie Harris and Rob Varey, with Ryan Cringle sixth.
Jenkinson’s fastest lap in the 1st Leg brought him pole position for the 2
nd Leg, and this time it was he who managed to stay narrowly ahead until the tenth lap, when Blackshaw took the lead and somehow managed to stay ahead at the flag; he won the race by 0.21 seconds, therefore winning on aggregate by seven-hundredths of a second, the closest finish in the Grand’s 25-year history. Jones was favourite to secure third place again, but went out at the end of the second lap with a broken chain, leaving the top 600’s to dice for the aggregate third podium spot; this was claimed by Harris, with Varey having the consolation of winning the 600 Award. Ryan Cringle was fifth on aggregate with Mike Booth sixth.
Congratulations to all the riders for putting on a great show for the spectators, and especially to Johnny Blackshaw and Adam Jenkinson, whose close racing throughout the 24 laps was truly memorable.
W100 Championships
Whilst the Anglesey Grand races were the main focus for the spectators, it was the other 32 races across the weekend that determined the finishing orders in the various club championships. In the
AS Racing Powerbikes races, Jenkinson did the winning, but he was not in contention for that championship, and so the final finishing order for those that had competed all year was Blackshaw, Harris and Jones. In the
Paul Bland Motorsport Formula 600 series Harris claimed two wins and Jones the other, so this meant that Harris won the championship by just 3 points. Chris Eden’s consistency across the season secured him third place.
The
Pre-Electronics Powerbikes run alongside their more-modern brothers and at this meeting Adrian Kershaw, aboard a Kawasaki ZR750 for the first time claimed two victories, the other going to Ulsterman Philip Kerr on his ageing Ducati; Mark Bainbridge (Honda Fireblade) also mixed it with the regulars with a second place and two thirds. All this meant that the regular class protagonists struggled for championship points; at the end of the day Neil Percival benefitted from John Jackson’s absence from the final race and won the series by just 2 points with the evergreen John Jones claiming third.
100% success rates were the order of the weekend in the 650 Twins, Pre-Injection, Golden Era Supersport and Forgotten Era races with Barry Lee Evans, Barry Lee Evans (again!),Tim Bradley and Paul Tye each winning their four championship races.
This was a rare W100 appearance by Evans this year and, despite his intervention, the first three in the
650 Twins standings before the meeting all did enough to maintain their championship positions – Mike Bampton (with two fourths and two fifths) followed by Tim Sayers and David Evans. It was a similar situation in the
Pre-Injection class where Jason Edwards (with one second, one third and two fourths) and Geoff Lunn held on to the top two championship positions; however it was John Jones, having his best weekend of the year, who ran his namesake closest in an excellent ZR750 dual and moved up to third in the final standings.
Bradley maintained his dominance in the
Golden Era Supersport races but Gethin Edwards also ran well, with three seconds and a third, to secure the runner-up spot in the championship and Ray Stevenson, the 2017 champion, who had his best meeting of the year to clinch third spot. Best of the rest were Manxman Lewis Parkinson and Jake Wall, having probably his most impressive set of results since he started racing.
Adrian Kershaw had clinched the
100-500cc Allcomers championship at the previous meeting, so sat this one out, concentrating instead on his big bike races; consequently there were two wins for Paul Tye, and one each for Ben Ashcroft and Adrian Morris, resulting in Tye and Ashcroft securing second and third positions in the championship. In the
Forgotten Era races Tye continued his amazing season-long unbeaten form and after the likely runner-up Chris Lewis had side-lined himself in race 1, Dan Hanby, with three thirds and a fourth, did enough to sneak the runner-up spot.
In the
Open Sidecar class many of the twelve teams entered had a variety of misfortunes across the weekend but the constant factor was the form of W100 newcomers Steve Markland & Owen Rigby, who had three wins and a third; the other win went to the W100 regular pairing of Craig Hauxwell & Derek Taylor. John Shipley’s two seconds and two fourths, with new passenger Lee Woodward alongside him, was enough to secure him the championship, and Paul Wade & Neil Gregory moved up to the runners-up spot.
At the end of both days
Senior and Junior Open races took place. In the Senior Johnny Blackshaw’s first and second was not quite enough to overhaul the 9-point lead that Jamie Harris had ahead of this final round, and in the Junior Mike Bampton’s two wins against David Evans’ fourth and a fifth, saw the top two positions reversed.
Finally, there were two non-championship ‘Frolic Races’ for those not competing in the Anglesey Grand and these saw wins for two Ulstermen, Philip Kerr (Powerbikes) and Glenn Walker (F600). We also had the pleasure of seeing (and not hearing) two electric bikes competing alongside the 100-500cc Allcomers; Dutchman Thijs Peteers gave an impressive performance on the University of Twente machine, but the more production-based Duffy in the hands of Welshman Josh Williams was in fairness almost as impressive
W100 Club Champions 2018
100-500cc Allcomers - Adrian Kershaw
Forgotten Era - Paul Tye
650 Twins - Mike Bampton
Golden Era Supersport - Tim Bradley
Pre-Injection - Jason Edwards
Paul Bland Formula 600 - Jamie Harris
Pre-Electronic Powerbikes - Neil Percival
AS Racing Powerbikes - Johnny Blackshaw
Open Sidecars - John Shipley & Jon Saidi / Lee Woodward
Anglesey Junior Open - Mike Bampton
Anglesey Senior Open - Jamie Harris
Photographs by Neil Lambert