2022 begins on Sunday for the East Midland Racing Association, when the first of six championship rounds takes place at Mallory Park.
The major championship as always is the Buildbase Mallory Trophy and 2021 champion Louis Dawson is back for a crack at the 2022 title. His major rivals in this first round will be 2021 runner-up Ashley King (who was Allcomers champion as well), reigning British GP2 champion Charlie Nesbitt, who will be riding the Vision Track Suzuki in the Superstock 1000 championship this year; Tom Oliver, racing for Buildbase Suzuki in the same series and Leon Jeacock making his debut in the British Superbike Championship this month. The same competitors will also be out in the Allcomers races giving themselves four races of practice for the forthcoming BSB events. The Mallory Trophy also has a 600 class, and the 2021 champion Ricky Tarren starts as favourite in this year’s series as he does in the Tamworth Yamaha open 600 class, in which he finished level with Jed Bird on points but took the title on race wins.
Louis Dawson made it a double championship by winning the SuperTwins series on a 660 Aprilia. Louis only started racing the Aprilia in July but won every race from that point on, gradually closing the gap on early leader Jamie Kelman, who handed the title to Louis by crashing at the hairpin in the final race to let Louis take his ninth consecutive win and the championship. Both are back for 2022, and Jamie is aiming for a double title of his own adding an extra cylinder and racing a Triumph in the 600 championship.
The Dunlop CB500 championship saw half a dozen different race winners and the title went right to the final race when Richard Blunt came from the back of the grid to win with Darren Faulkner taking runner up spot in the series ahead of Terry Allsopp and Paul Sawyer.
John Lea dominated the Alamo Racing two-stroke series on his TZ250 Yamaha, but has reversed the usual progression in size by winning the EMRA 600 championship, the racing a 250 and this weekend he is out on a 125 Honda where his rivals will include Phil Harvey also on a Honda. There is a variety of Junior Supersport machinery in the 450 class, 300s,400s and a 390 KTM, and a nw class this yar is the Classic Era, which simply stated is 20th century bikes.
The pre-injection races between Steve Brittain and Aaron Staniforth were a feature of every EMRA meeting last year and battle resumes again on Sunday.
Sam Leach started the Rookie series with two huge wins in the wet to head the series but then spent all year in a fierce contest with Alex Pearson with the championship going to the very last race, when whichever of the two won the race would be champion, Sam taking victory by 1.2 seconds.
Qualifying begins at 9.30, racing shortly after 11.30