Close racing was the order of the day at Mallory Park on Sunday with winning margins of less than half a second in five races – and last-lap changes of lead to make life really interesting for the man with the flag.
The meeting began with the JHP Coventry Allcomers race, which had more than a hint of a practice event for the BSB Superstocks which starts at the end of the month. Leon Jeacock took the lead from the start but as the race progressed Luke Stapleford closed the gap and with six laps gone was just a quarter of a second down when the race was red-flagged giving the win to Leon, with Tom Ward taking third while Billy McConnell came out on top of a battle with Louis Dawson. The second race saw Jeacock ahead again when history repeated itself and the race was stopped after six laps, with Stapleford second again ahead of Ward and Dawson,
The same cast of characters lined up for the Chase Accident Repair/King Dick Tools & Dunlop Mallory Trophy, but this time it was Luke Stapleford who got out in front and succeeded in staying there while Jeacock and Billy McConnell fought over second place with Tom Oliver taking fourth ahead of Ward. The BSB teams had all learned what they need to know by the time the second race took place and the race was between Andrew Fisher and Louis Dawson, with the pair coming out of the Devil’s elbow scarily side by side more than once until Fisher managed to get away and win by four seconds, while Luke Burnett won a very tough scrap for third from Ryan Cole.
At the May meeting, in the wet, Sam Leach simply ran away with both Rookie races, but Sunday’s race could not have been more different. In race one Sam opened up a gap of a second and a half over Alex Pearson in the first four laps, but then the gap began to shrink and on lap nine Pearson came past in the lead by inches and held on to win the race by one-sixth of a second.
Aaron Staniforth and Steve Brittain had a tremendous race-long battle in the first Properly Protected Pre-injection race in which Aaron took the lead early on and held on until half-distance at which point Steve got ahead and with a lap to go was half a second ahead, only to find Aaron take the win on the very last lap. Race two saw Staniforth ahead for the early part of the race until Carl Morris, who had taken third place in race one, came by to stretch a lead to 2.7 seconds by the end.
The Binley Woods Car Sales Twins race began with Richard Saunders leading from Andrew Corkett, John Bolsover and Andrew Herd, but by halfway Herd was up to second place, one second down on Saunders, two laps later it was four-thousandths and on the final lap it was Andrew Herd who took the win by 0.3 seconds with Bolsover just ahead of Corkett for third. The second race was a start to finish victory for Jamie Kelman, making the long trip from Kent, although Saunders was never far behind.
Former Thundersport 500 champion Josh Leaning led the first Dunlop CB500 race from start to finish, with Martin Radford in second and Richard Blunt finally overcoming Darren Faulkner for third. The second CB500 race saw Leaning again leading throughout with Sam Palfreyman second while James Lee recovered from ninth place on lap one to take second on the final lap. Race three was Darran Faulkner’s with Martin Radford second ahead of Richard Blunt.
Richard Blunt and James Lee fought over first place for almost all of the Marine Fabrication open 500 race until Blunt was able to open up a gap in the last two laps while Palfreyman caught Radford for third at the end. Marcus Tatchell won the second race from Josh Leaning, but had to work much harder in the final race, the two being wheel to wheel throughout, with Marcus only snatching the win on the last lap.
Ricky Tarren beat Jed Bird in both the Tamworth Yamaha 600 races, the first time by 1.2 seconds, the second by six seconds while Bird was busy fighting off Steve Proctor.
John Lea completely dominated the Alamo Racing Sound of Music two-stroke races on his TZ250, beating Alan Moreton’s production 500 Suzuki by over twenty seconds and lapping all but five of the 28 riders in the field, and then won the second race by 38 seconds. Harrison Dessoy won the 450 class on his Moto3 machine in both races and John Chambers won the Earlystock class in race one, coming second to Stu Poulton in race two.