Lee Johnston claimed the Steve Henshaw International Gold Cup at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough at the weekend but the Ashcourt Racing Yamaha rider was made to fight all the way by friend and rival Dean Harrison (Dafabet Devitt Racing Kawasaki).
With good, dry conditions, the duo went head to head throughout eight thrilling laps and although Johnston led all the way, Harrison was never more than a second behind as they repeatedly broke the Supersport 600cc lap record around the 2.43-mile venue.
Harrison posted the first ever sub1m45s lap by a 600cc machine around the woodland circuit, at 1m44.842s, but fell short of the victory by just 0.211s meaning Johnston got his name on the famous trophy for the second year running thus continuing his rich vein of form at the venue. Joey Thompson took third on his Kawasaki, some 23s adrift, with James Hind, Jamie Coward and Tom Weeden completing the top six.
It was a similar story in the four 600cc races where Johnston, riding superbly in the British Supersport Championship, and Harrison again dominated proceedings, the former winning both of Saturday’s encounters by 0.318s and 0.722s respectively.
He again came out on top in Sunday’s opener by 0.848s but Harrison finally got the better of him in the final race of the weekend, taking victory by half a second. Thompson, Hind, Mike Norbury, Dominic Herbertson and Rob Hodson shared the remaining leaderboard placings.
Harrison also enjoyed close battles with Coward in the four Supertwins races, the duo taking two wins, a second and a DNF each, Harrison failing to start Saturday’s first race and Coward crashing without injury at the Memorial during Sunday morning’s race. Herbertson, Hind and the evergreen Ian Lougher all took third place finishes.
Harrison also took three of the four Classic Superbike races, this time on the Greenall Racing Kawasaki but it was David Bell (Graham Turnbull Yamaha) who claimed the overall honours with his win and three second places giving him 85 points to Harrison’s 75.
The four sidecar races all went the way of Lee Crawford/Scott Hardie (LCR Suzuki) with Hind and Thompson taking two wins each on their 250cc Yamaha’s in the two-stroke category.
