Reports Worcester MXC at Tirley
Written by MIKE WOOD Tuesday, 29 March 2011 00:00
Mist shrouded the distant Malvern hills as the 3rd round of the Wessex AMCA Season met at Tirley on Sunday. The Worcester club had spent a lot of time, money and effort in fine tuning the hillside track by widening the course and re-profiling the jumps and it looked to have paid off for them as a there was a big turnout of riders and an impressive number of spectators gathered to watch.
Practice got underway, and it was immediately obvious that the very dry March we have had, plus all the hard work from the club, had resulted in a track that was going to provide some very fast racing throughout the day.
The MX2 Seniors kicked off the action with the first of their three races, with Rikki English leading them home and taking the first win of the day. He was not able to repeat this for the other two races in this class, as Alex Perkins recovered from a race one DNF to take the remaining victories in this class, but Rikki still did enough to hold on for the overall win this class. The MX1 Juniors were next on the line and they provided some very close racing throughout the day – in fact the top three of Nick Woodward, Phillip Thomson and Barry Stone all crossed the line within 3 seconds of each other. Consistency paid off for Nick though, as he was never off the podium which gave him the overall win.
The MX Juniors over 18 was won by Julian Ware, who posted a third, a first and a second for the overall but he was pushed all the way by an equally consistent Darren Savage. The MX1 Experts were next up, and everyone was eager to see the Barrs / Lane battle carry on from the last round at Bromsberrow – and they didn’t disappoint. Round 1 went to Barrs, who was able to pull away from Simon Lane by the end of the race for a relatively comfortable winning margin of over 5 seconds. However, round 2 went to James Lane who after a fierce battle throughout the race with Barrs, just held him off to cross the line first by less than a second. So it was one-all, with race 3 to be the decider. Again, it was James and Clinton who pulled clear of the rest of the pack and both riders were desperate for the overall. The crowd of spectators were given a fantastic display of racing as they pushed each other faster and faster, with James setting the fastest lap of the day halfway through the battle. It was anybody’s race going into the final lap, but Clinton was just able to snatch the win with a margin of less than half a second from James, which also gave Clinton the overall on the day.
There were two clean sweeps on the day – Joshua Bishop in the Inter Juniors and Danny Finch in the MX2 Juniors under 18’s. Both of these young riders are showing real skills (at the previous round at Bromsberrow, Danny was third overall and Joshua scored a maximum 180 points) and it will be interesting to watch them rise through the classes in the future.
Over in the MX1 Seniors, Anthony Mapp showed you can take the overall without a race win if you post solid results in all three races. He fought hard in all three races and posted a 2nd, 4th and 6th to take the winners trophy home. The days racing finished with the MX2 Experts. Ben Saunders has moved from the MX1 class to the MX2 this season, but he is not having it all his own way. Although he was 2nd across the line in races 1 and 2, and won the final race of the day, it was not enough to topple Carl Benjamin from the top step. Carl won the first two races and did just enough in race three with a third place finish to clinch the overall by just 2 points.
Congratulation must go to Stephen Maile and the Worcester club, who were able to get all the races in the programme completed, although it was a good job the clocks had gone forward, as the extra hour of daylight was very handy. Despite the dry weather, dust was kept under control thanks to the work they had put into the track. The next round is at Brookthorpe on the 3rd of April – see you all there.
Report and images by Dave Richards
David Richards (www.mxdave.com)
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