Donington und blitzen!

Unseasonably stormy weather threatened at Donington, a dry Friday being followed by a miserably wet Saturday, and gale-force gusts blasting across the track on Sunday.
Undaunted, a huge crowd turned up, and while they may have got what they wanted when 15 year-old Scott Redding powered his way to victory in the 125 GP, the honour of race of the weekend surely went to Sunday’s round for Thundersport GB2.
Mark Davies got his Yamaha 250 away to a great start, with Dan Tarratt leading the early chase.
But after a lap or so, William Dunlop escaped the attentions of Mike Edwards and Nathan Pallett, flew past Tarratt, and reeled Davies in.
There followed a superb head-to-head battle for the lead, which was to last to the flag.
Lap charts just tell you who was ahead at the line each time, but nothing of multiple changes of lead that took place, lap after lap.
At the end of a brilliant race, Mark took the win, just 87 hundredths of a second ahead of William’s KRP Honda 250.
Mike Edwards’ Honda 450 was third, ahead of Nathan Pallett and Dan Tarratt, and they finished just ahead of a great scrap, which saw Ben Miller, Adam Hoare and Ronan Shanahan separated by less than half a second at the flag. Bruce Dunn, who qualfied second, didn't like the look of the first wet race and when did the sighting lap for race two, he found his exhaust bracket had come off. Not happy!
Super singalong…

There was a palpable air of expectation around the club racers, as they savoured the unique opportunity to perform in front of a Moto GP crowd.
Indeed, the Aprilia Superteen riders, billeted in the Exhibition Centre, were bouncing off the walls with excitement by Friday lunchtime!
They shared the Centre with a number of trade stands, and a bar, which was the scene of a massive karaoke session on Saturday night.
Some of the younger singers were really quite good, and some of the older, not quite so.
It continued till two in the morning, and most of the Superteen riders had a lie-in, as their race was late in the afternoon.
A good time was had by all, and many could remember most of it (er, no, Jason, and probably not you, Sid…)

Super racing…

The J & S Aprilia Superteen riders continue to amaze.
They might have been forgiven for a little nervousness on such a big occasion, but they rose to it en masse.
Eleven of the top twenty qualifiers rode to their best grid positions of the year – a wonderful achievement.
Bruce Winfield took an assured win in the wet on Saturday, ahead of Connor Tagg and Andy Reid, who both raced to their best ever Championship finishes.
They received their trophies from ex-Superteen, Bradley Smith, who, despite Moto GP commitments, stayed long enough to autograph a mass of papers, programmes, hats, and tee shirts, and stayed smiling throughout.
Frazer Rogers, who’d finished fourth, got Bradley to sign a copy of the race results, and was obviously suitably inspired, as he went on to win the Sunday race.
An impressive proportion of the vast crowd stayed to the end of the event, and seemed to thoroughly enjoy the massive grids, and massively impressive racing, of both Thundersport GB2 and Aprilia Superteens