Gino Rea led a Buildbase team 1-2-3 at the Completely Motorbikes Race of the Year at Mallory Park, beating Leon Jeacock and Tim Neave in the twenty-lap race. Having got under 51 seconds in qualifying to secure pole position it was clear Gino was going to be hard to beat, but he may have been surprised just how well local star Leon Jeacock would stick right in the slipstream of the Buildbase team leader.
Leon has a lot of Mallory Park trophies in his collection, and he was determined to collect another, and after twelve laps he was still within 0.3 seconds but then the gap began to widen just a little, a whole second by lap sixteen and 1.8 by the end of the race. Tim Neave took five laps to get past Tom Oliver, but once in third he held on while behind him a battle raged between Oliver, the two Gearlink Kawasaki’s of Eugene McGlinchy and new signing Zac Corderoy, and Levi Day, along with Charlie Nesbitt, the new national Moto 2 champion racing for the first time on a 1000cc bike.
Eventually it was Levi Day who grabbed fourth with Nesbitt taking fifth on his Buildbase debut ahead of McGlinchy and Corderoy, less than a second covering all four. It was a brilliant end to a great year for Gino which saw him take his first BSB victory, and he was taking a great interest in the names on the trophy which started with John Surtees and include eleven world champions, Hailwood, Agostini, Sheene and Roberts among them.
The final races of the EMRA championships were run at this meeting and the 2021 champions are all now decided. Louis Dawson had already won the Mallory Trophy but wanted to end the year with another win and after following Ricky Tarren for the first two laps took the lead and held on for the next six laps but then pulled out with mechanical problems leaving Tarren in the lead from Mikey Leeson and Ashley King. Two laps later Leeson crashed out and by now Zac Corderoy had fought through to third from a back row start. Lap 14 saw Corderoy take the lead and hold on with Tarren second and King third.
Louis made himself a double champion by winning the Super Twins race on his 660 Aprilia. He came to the final 35 points behind Jamie Kelman, who had led the championship from the start. Louis led from the start of the race with Jamie in second place and that would have been enough to give Jamie the title, but on lap 12 he came off at the hairpin, and Louis ran away with the race to record his ninth consecutive victory and take the title. Richard Saunders won the Minitwins section of the race from Darren Corkett, but Darren took the title, and Marcus Tatchell is the F400 champion after taking second in the race to Steve Moody.
The Dunlop CB500 championship was a straight battle between Richard Blunt and Darren Faulkner, and Blunt had only to finish in the first four in race one to take the title – but no-one likes just riding for points, especially not in this class, and Richard was hot on Darren’s heels for seven laps with Paul Sawyer making it a six-wheeler for most of the race. Going into the final lap Blunt was one-seventh of a second down, but at the hairpin he was off the bike and Darren took maximum points, closing to within 25 points with fifty to race for. Having not finished race one, Richard was very much at the blunt end of the grid, but it only took him three laps to reach the sharp end of the race closing on Faulkner and Sawyer and on lap six he was in the lead and certain of the 2021 title, winning the race by one second from Sawyer with Darren dropping down to fifth on the final lap.
Richard was hoping to take the Marine Fabrications Open 500 title as well, coming into the final round only four points behind Marcus Tatchell. Marcus broke bones in various parts of his body when high siding at Edwina’s last month, and it was touch and go whether he would make the final meeting, but they breed them tough in Yorkshire, and he came second to Dan Walling in race one ahead of Kieran Kent (Danny’s brother) and Blunt, and followed that with victory in the final race ahead of Blunt, and thereby winning the title.
Ricky Tarren had already won the Tamworth Yamaha 600 title, so his crash in the damp conditions on Sunday did not affect the championship, the race going to runner-up Jed Bird. Steve Brittain won the Pre-Injection race, as he so often does, with Aaron Staniforth taking second in the closing stages and these two are 1000 and 600 champions. John Lea tied up the Alamo Racing Sounds of Music two-stroke title with two more victories, making twelve on the bounce while Alan Moreton took second for the ninth and tenth time.
The Midland Superbikes Rookies championship was a contest between Sam Leach and Alex Pearson, with Sam starting the day 19 points ahead. Pearson had to win the first race, but he was hounded by Leach all the way and the winning margin was 0.2 seconds with Reece Cashman less than a second away in third. That brought the margin down to nine points, and the whole year’s racing came down to the final race – whichever of the two won the race would be champion. Sam made sure it was him, taking the lead from the start and after four laps he was ahead of Pearson when the red flag came out and a result was declared, the champion being Sam Leach.