Lee Wilson came to Mallory Park on Sunday in search of the Buildbase Mallory Trophy title more in hope than expectation, with a 27-point deficit to make up on championship leader Andy Carpenter. He qualified in pole, which was a good start, but then his championship chances improved immensely as Carpenter crashed at the exit of the Devil’s Elbow on the very first lap, leaving Lee with only the worry of staying in front of Mick Corrigan to take the win and wipe out the points deficit.
In race two, the Richard Jones Trophy, Lee had only to finish ahead of Carpenter, and with Andy starting from the back of the grid, it was a South Yorkshire battle between Wilson and Corrigan, with the Barnsley rider pulling away in the later stages to leave Corrigan, who was riding a 30-year-old Yamaha FJ1100 and setting 53s lap times in second and Adam Clarke third, Carpenter coming home sixth.
The Rookie races were the best of the day, with Steve Bates on the Tubes Scaffolding BMW beating Matthew Shaw into second place after two very hard-fought battles. The Richard Moreton Trophy race saw Bates take the lead at the start, with William Shaw second ahead of his twin, but William fell on lap four, leaving Matthew to chase Bates, closing to within 0.2 seconds by lap eight, but Steve managed to extend that to almost half a second by the end of the race.
The second race, the Craig Rudge Tribute race, was even more hard fought, Matthew leading at the end of lap one, Steve on lap two, then the lead constantly swapped between them until lap seven when the Leicester rider got ahead and finally made it stick, although it was only on the last lap that any sort of gap appeared. In third place was Jonathan Panter, wearing a Craig Ridge tribute shirt. Jonno had started from the back of the grid riding in memory of Craig, who was for many years a race marshal at Mallory (as are his father and brother) until his tragically early death from cancer at the age of 45, leaving his wife Lisa and two young daughters Chloe and Alexis. All Craig’s family were on the track for the presentation to the top three riders.
It was a very mixed day for the Shaw twins – Matthew’s two second places brought him the Rookie championship, and he also took the Superstock 1000 title after two more battles with Steve Bates, which ended with a win and a second place each. William got the Man of the Meeting award last month, but it was a very different kind of day for him this time as he only saw the chequered flag once out of four starts.
He came to Mallory hoping to catch his brother in the Rookie championship but having scored zero, he dropped from second to fourth,so the Superstock 600 series was his best chance of a title, where he started ten points behind Jed Bird. Race one saw both the leaders go down at Edwina’s on lap two, so it all came down to race two, and although William won the class, Jed’s second place clinched the championship.
John Lea has spent all season running away with the Supersport events and Sunday was no different, 19 seconds ahead of Paul Shook in race one, but only ten seconds in race two – ten wins from ten starts to take the title. Paul Westerdale did even better in the Formula Lightweight class, winning all twelve races with Steve Cullen taking two more second places to ensure runner-up spot.
Nigel Palmer made it nine wins out of ten starts in the GP125 class, Emma Franklin taking second in both races, and in the series. Harry Phillips won both F125 races from David Ince, and that’s how the championship ended.
Michael Leeson won a very competitive Roadstocks race one on his 990 KTM, which was enough to settle the senior class title, but the battle in the junior class was going to the last minute – Arthur Oliver chased Ian Fairgrieve for the first nine laps and grabbing victory on the very last lap, which gave Arthur the lead in the series. Race two saw Leeson and Ryan Oliver wheel to wheel for the first four laps but Ryan dropped out, and then Ian Fairgrieve caught the KTM and just got his nose ahead on lap eight only for Leeson to retake the lead and win by a third of a second.
Arthur Oliver was involved in a scrap with Jason Taylor and ended the race in second in the 600 class, which gave the championship to Ian Fairgrieve by just two points – the closest championship of all.
Gary Arden won both Supertwins races from Jonathan wells to take the championship, while in the Minitwins series his two victories were not quite enough to take the title from Simon Edmundson. It was a bit scary seeing Gary in exactly the same place on the grid for the first race of the day as last time out, but this time the bike went forward instead of upward and all was well.
