Welcome to the beta version of the new Women & Golf website. Our web monkeys are still hard at work and welcome your feedback.  

Advertisement

Hottrax Brands: Weekend race report

Moto Breakers 1000 (Alex Olsen/Jimmy Rose) ran home clear winners of the opening round of the ACU/Towergate National 1000 championship at Brands Hatch on March 21.

Fastest in qualifying, the youngsters, who will be racing for the same team in the British Superstock 1000 series this season, ended the three hour event with 198 laps run on their Kawasaki ZX10Rs, three ahead of their closest rivals.

Leading from the start, Moto Breakers stayed out in front till the 42 lap, when Rose had to pull in after being given a one minute penalty for allegedly overtaking on a yellow flag.
Then, when Rose resumed the race, his rear chain snapped.
By the time he went back out he was dead last. Pulling back three seconds a lap, they regained the lead on the 110th lap.

Advertisement

Remarkably, this was only the second ever Endurance race for 22-year-old Olsen and the very first for 26-year-old Rose.

It might have been a double class win for the Doncaster-based squad, because the Moto Breakers 600 team (Tom Carne/Wayne Ryan) had been fifth fastest overall in qualifying and running up near the front of the Towergate National 600 class till a fall midway through the race.

Ryan crashed when his throttle stuck open. They lost a great deal of time, but the youngsters, Carne, 21 and 19-year-old Ryan, both making their Endurance debuts, battled back to finish fifth in class on their Kawasaki ZX6Rs.

Second home in the race was Sweatshop Racing (Hugh Brasher/Steve Neate), who was only 23rd fastest in qualifying, thanks to a sudden shower of rain that ruined their chances of good lap times.

They made a good getaway, holding tenth place at the end of the first lap and with Neate, a late replacement for the injured Mick Godfrey, they pulled through the pack.
By lap six the pair, on their big Kawasakis, were up second spot.

At the chequered flag they were still runners up, three laps down. Third over the line were newcomers, Fast Past Pits, comprising of Lincolnshire brothers Harry and Matt Truelove on a pair of Yamaha R6s, a lap behind Sweatshop and first Towergate National 600s over the line.

Fourth overall, just over 34 seconds further back, was Team Edge RST 2, (Michael Brown/Hudson Kennaugh), third in the big bike class.

It had been a traumatic race for them. Early in the warm-up Gary Johnson had crashed out, breaking his collar-bone. Clark stepped in to partner Kennaugh. Then the team were handed a 60 second time penalty for a technical infringement.

Fifth over the line and second National 600s was Team Sorrymate.com (Colin Norris/Warren Verwey). They were three laps down on Team Edge. After a dramatic start, when Norris’s machine failed to fire up, they dropped from seventh on the grid to dead last, After the first half hour, though, they were up to fifth spot.

Advertisement

Sixth overall and fourth in the class was a new team, AC Racing, made up of Greg Alllsop and Richard Charlton, who is better known for his efforts on a 600, but now Honda Fireblade-mounted in this series. They completed 191 laps, the same as another National 1000 team, Seton Tuning (Mark Clark/Andy Goddard).

Eighth over the line was 2 Allen’s Racing, (Kevin and Roy Allen) at first placed first in the Clubman 1000 class, but moved into the Towergate National 1000 category because of licensing problems.

Team Army ran four squads in this opening round of the season.
All made good starts, but one was too good, with Team Army 4 picking a penalty for a jump start.

The first session was lethal with a damp drying track and half the grid on slicks. There were lots of unscheduled stops in that session as teams tried to find the right tyre. With The Army, with their less than flattering budget and to pretty much stuck with what they had and it paid off.

Advertisement

Just as it began to rain heavy again and changes were considered absolutely necessary the safety car came out. So all the Army teams could stay on track on reduced pace regardless of tyres and reached the planned 30 min changeovers.

The race settled down a bit in session two even though the mixed conditions continued, everyone had sussed their tyre choices by then.

Thirty minutes into the race T2 were fourth and T1 seventh. Even T4, the greener than green rookies, were in P14. The hour mark, after the first set of rider changes, saw a marked change around.

T1 were still well placed in sixth place, but T2 had slipped a tad to tenth and T3 had the best second session improving up the field to 12th. The weather was changeable until the final hour when it seemed to settle into dull, but cold and dry.
It was all about staying aboard, staying on the pace and keeping an eye on what teams around them were doing. Going into the final 30 minutes of the race and the Army teams were all still in it.

The discovery that 2 Allen’s Racing had a National licence holder in their ranks lifted T1 from second to first in the Clubman 1000 class, T2 fourth in National 600, T3 sixth in Clubman 1000 and T4, the 600 rookie team fourth in the Clubman 600 and first 600 rookie team. This was Team Army 1’s first Hottrax win.

First Towergate Clubman 600 over the line was Liquidskinz Hydrographic (Stuart Fitton/Martin Tromans) in 23rd place.
Top Towergate Modern Classics team, not surprisingly, was Team Big Lads (Joe Connolly/Bob Barton).

Top Rookie team was Clubmans 1000 squad, G&M Racing (Robin Green/Mark McIndoe), in 31st place. Go Racing Developments qualified third fastest, but decided to start from pit lane while they waited for the big black cloud overhead to go or not, before making a decision as to who would start the race
James McBride got the nod, started on dry tyres, making his way through to third place within a few laps.

Andy Carpenter maintained third place, but then, during McBride’s second stint, he collided with a slower rider at Druids. The team recovered the bike, but lost 19 laps. They finished ninth in the big class.

Third in the event last season, Go Racing are aware that they can drop one of the ten rounds in the final results and now look forward to round two at Cadwell.
Scotbeen Racing (Kenny Paterson/Jim Laing) were winners at last season’s round at Knockhill. This year they plan to contest the entire series on their BMW S1000RRs.
Newcomers to the Kent circuit, they spent Friday learning the place on a cold and slippery track. After just three laps in Saturday’s qualifying session Laing ran wide at Clearways, overtaking a slower rider and slid off. They finished 19th overall and eighth in their class.
Team Edge RST 1 riders Jonny Towers and Nick Edgeley had a tough start to the season. The National 600 team qualified 13th fastest, but in very difficult track conditions Edgeley slid off after just ten minutes. Nick, who was already carrying a wrist injury, decided to pull out.

They decided to carry on with just one rider. Towers had never ridden non-stop racing for nearly three hours in what, at times, were horrendous conditions.

They ran 175 laps on just two rears and one front, finishing 26th overall and seventh overall.
T.Watson Bikes (Rick Dickinson/Tom Stephens) are the reigning Clubman 1000 champions, aiming this season for the Towergate National 1000 crown. This race proved to be one of the toughest the team have ever contested. They ended up 15th overall, seventh in class.

Christian Holt knew it would be tough moving up into the Moto Grand Powerbike 1000 after taking the Pro-National 1000 title last season.
In the very cold, but dry, qualifying session, he ended up on the outside of the third row, quite happy because qualifying is not his strongest point. Third in both race one and two
Holt qualified on row three the following day. He made good start, but crashed at Surtees. His crash helmet was ruined and the medical staff declared him unfit to race for the rest of the day.

London-based Brazilian Rhalf Lo Turco won both of the Sunday’s races, with Brown collecting a third and a second to end the weekend on 81, three more than Neate who had a second and a fourth. Despite his bad luck Holt ended the weekend fourth in the table

Paul Barker opened up a comfortable 20 points lead over the opposition in the Moto Grande Pre National 1000 class. He ended the weekend on 86 points, thanks to two wins, a second and a third.

Second in the standings is Kevin Allen, who notched up two seconds and two fourths.

Craig Kennelly struggled in Saturday’s qualifying session. It was spitting with rain and he chose a wet front and slick rear, making it tough to put in some good times. He qualified on the fifth row for the day’s two races.

Kennelly had a good start in race one, climbing into top five going into Paddock. Sadly a rider high-sided in front of him and taking avoiding action meant the leaders went away.
Kennelly had a great battle, moving ahead after a last-lap pass, to take fifth place.

His start in race two, was not as good after a massive wheelie and tank slap off the line, but he still managed to gain places. Once more he ended up with a middle order pack of riders battling to the end. He grabbed fifth place again. Kennelly went quicker in Sunday’s qualifying, but with fuller grid, he was pushed back to the sixth row.

After a getting a good start and staying with the front runners for the opening laps he was hoping for a good result.
Unfortunately a de-laminating tyre caused his bike to be uncontrollable in slides out of all right handers. He managed to finish eighth.

Due to the tyre issues in the previous race, the last race meant he was forced to use a four-day old tyre. That quickly became evident on the opening lap, when after a good start he nearly high sided out of Druids attempting to over-take on another rider.

As other riders fell he knew he just needed to finish to gain solid points and took sixth spot. Unchallenged all weekend Andrew Cockburn took maximum points in the Pro Moto class.

Local youngster Sam Cox raced the Jack Lilley Triumph 675 over the two days. He was beaten only once, on the Sunday when James Edwards headed him home in the first race of the day, finishing on 95 points.

Jack Bleakley took two seconds and two thirds to end the weekend on 72 points, 20 ahead of Stuart Dawson. Paul Slade was unbeatable in the Motogrande Pre National 600 series. He took four wins from four rides to end on a maximum 100,
Like Chris Parish, Gavin Bartlett has moved up from the ranks of Rookies to contest the series this year. Both look likely to be in the thick of things over the rest of the year. Bartlett qualified second fastest in his class and eighth overall, with Chris Parish in tenth place.

It was a close battle between Bartlett and Parish in race one, changing positions multiple times and just 200th of a second between Parish in third spot and Bartlett in fourth place.
Race two was virtually a carbon copy of the first. This time Bartlett managed to break from Parish, opening a gap to take third spot, just ahead of his rival.

Though Bartlett made a good start in race three, the rear tyre he had used in both races the previous day went off after nine laps. He dropped back from third place to fourth, behind his rival.
Bartlett changed the tyre and also tried a different rear sprocket, but the machine was revving out early on the straights, preventing him from keeping up with Parish. Again Bartlett was fourth behind Parish.

Dave Wymer clocked up four wins over the weekend to top the Motogrande Powersport Rookie class, He has 100 points, 31 more than his closest rival, James Young. James Hoare is third in the points’ table, on 56.

Three different winners in the four Motogrande Rookie 600 class indicates it could be a hard fought series in 2015. Luke Macrae won the first, Kevin Cline the second, while Mick Ducran took victory in both of Sunday’s races, Ducran tops the standings, with 96 points, 15 more than Clive.

Matt Lawson, the reigning Ducati Desmo Due Class A champion looked set to start the year with a bagful of points. He won his first race, but failed to score in the second and that meant he ended the weekend third on 41 points. Dallas Hornblower leads the competition on 65, four ahead of Martin Cox.

Scott Wilson notched up two wins and a second place in the Ducati Desmo Due Class B class, to top the points’ table on 70.
Miles Watson-Cort is second on 56 and James Robinson third with 42.

Reigning Modern Classics Superbike champion, Owen Richardson now knows how tough it is going to be to retain his crown this season.

Ian Pattinson won both races on the Sunday to end the weekend on 82, eight down on Paul Baleta who was unbeaten on Saturday. Richardson is third on 72. Joe Connolly was the model of consistency in the Modern Classic Superbike Evo class. In addition to his efforts in the Endurance race, he also never finished lower than third in his four rides, including two wins, to take the lead in the series on 86. It might have been different if Seb Kelly and Ross Dunning had added to their good Saturday results.

Another man who was not content to race only in a three hour event was Team Army 3 man, Darryl Hodder, who competed in three of the four Formula One races. Rival Carl Dodwell tops the standings on 70, five more than Hodder, Jack Harvey was the sole entry in Formula Two series and that was only on the Saturday. He won both races.

The conditions did not faze the experienced Rob Garland. He raced eight times over the weekend, four in the Modern Classics Supersport Pre-I class and the same in the Lightweights. He won them all to lead both championships
Jon Bolsover was unbeaten in his Four Modern Classics Supersport EVO races, to end the weekend with a maximum 100 points.
Adam Shepherd chased him home in all four, to finish on 80.

Despite slipping up and only finishing ninth in his second race, Dan Anderson won his other three races to end the weekend in the Formula 400/250 class on 82 points.

If a 2 hour 50 minute non-stop session in Endurance race was not enough for Jonny Towers, he was soon back out again for the Super Twin race.

Lining up third on the grid amongst GSXRs and Aprillia Milles, Towers had a great race, crossing the line second overall and first in his class. But that was enough and after that he went home.

Articles you may like

Advertisement

More Club News

Advertisement
linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram