EMRA puts on its biggest meeting of the year this weekend, 10th/11th July, with two days of racing, featuring the FSRA F2 sidecar championship as well as the FSRA pre-injection sidecar series in addition to the full range of EMRA championship events. The last round of the championships here at Mallory was filled with close racing and last-lap changes of lead, with winning margins of less than half a second in five races, and everyone is looking forward to more of the same high quality.
You don’t see four dozen sidecars together at a racetrack very often, but that is the scale of the entry this weekend. Lee Crawford and Scott Hardie have been invincible so far in the 2021Super F2 championship, taking pole position, two race wins and a new lap record at Donington to add to their double victory in round one at Brands Hatch, and given that the team won at Mallory in the 2019 series ,they have a lot to be confident about going into the weekend. Sean Hegarty and James Neave are second in the championship with two second places at Brands and two thirds at Donington, and this pairing got a second place in the 2019 races here. John Lowther was the other race winner in 2019, but this year has seen two fifth places while for reigning champion Pete Founds , who won twelve races in 2019, his fourth at Mallory was his lowest finish of his championship year. Brian Ilaria and Matt Simms head the F2 Cup standings by just four points from Roger & Bradley Stockton with Shaun and Ben Chandler a further four points down. Brian and Shaun got a win each at Brands, but the Donington round was dominated by Harry Payne who took second overall as well as winning the Cup section in both races.
The Pre-injection sidecar teams have already had a championship round at Mallory which was dominated by Rob Fisher and Sarah Stokoe who won both races on their Baker F2 outfit. The F1 class was won on both occasions by Simon Horton and Jordon Forrest, and they lead the F1 category with 45 points with Dave Tibbles second on 41 after two seconds at Mallory. Fisher has maximum points in the F2 class with Liam and James Saunders second, sixteen points behind after two seconds and two thirds.
Last month’s Mallory Trophy and Allcomers races were a training session for national Superstock championship riders, but they are all up in Scotland this weekend and the regular EMRA championship contestants can take the limelight. Louis Dawson was the only man who could battle with the national stars in June, scrapping with, and in one race, beating Billy McConnell and Tom Oliver. In the final Mallory Trophy race, without the national riders, Dawson and Andrew Fisher were wheel to wheel for the first half of the race until Fisher managed to draw away to win by four seconds. Dawson heads that championship from Fisher, as he does in the Allcomers series. These races will be something of a comeback meeting for Brazilian racer Rhalf Lo Turco, whose CV includes winning the Triumph Triple championship back in 2009 and a couple of years in BSB, although it is quite some time since he has been seen on a British track.
Ricky Tarren beat Jed Bird in both the Tamworth Yamaha 600 races last month, the first time by 1.2 seconds, the second by six seconds while Bird was busy fighting off Steve Proctor. It is Jed who leads the championship by a single point with Rookie Sam Leach holding third place. Among all the usual Supersport bikes in today’s events is the Moto2 machine of Jodie Fieldhouse, who is hoping to do as well on the bigger bike as she always did on the Moto 3 machine.
Sam Leach ran away with both Rookie races at the opening very wet meeting in May, but found it much harder at the June meeting where, after opening up a gap of 1.5 seconds over Alex Pearson in the first four laps, he found the gap shrinking and on lap nine Pearson inched past and held on to win by just one-sixth of a second. Sam has a forty point lead over Alex Pearson coming into today’s meeting with Aimee Leeson holding third place.
Aaron Staniforth and Steve Brittain had a tremendous race-long battle in the first Properly Protected Pre-injection race in which Brittain was half a second ahead with one lap to go, but it was Staniforth who took the win on the very last lap.
The Binley Woods Car Sales Twins race began with Richard Saunders leading from Darren 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. Corkett heads the championship by just two points from Bolsover, with Saunders in third.
A double win for Marcus Tatchell puts him fifteen points ahead of Tony Brabazon in the Powerslide Motorcycle F400 series
Lucca Allen on a 320 Yamaha, currently fifth in the national Junior Supersport championship, having stood on the rostrum alongside Tom Booth-Amos at Donington Park last weekend, heads the varied entry in the 125-450 class but it is Shane Hodkinson on a similar machine who heads the championship after the first two rounds.
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 Sam Palfreyman caught Martin 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. It is Blunt who leads this championship, with Tatchell second , and Richard also heads the Dunlop CB500 championship.
The numbers of Earlystock bikes are increasing again, and all will be trying to stop Stu Poulton (350LC Yamaha) and John Chambers (750 Honda) running away with their respective championship classes.