EXPERT
Air Cooled Monoshock
Dominated by mono-shock Yamahas it’s good to see that this year all four rounds have been won by four different winners. Despite not winning a round Robert Faulkner holds the series lead on his Yamaha with some very consistent results. Second in the series, Steve Bird, won the opening round followed by Colin Ward Snr, before John Cowley joined the Japanese show on his 260cc TLM Honda. How long will it be before we see the Italian and Spanish air-cooled mono’s become more evident in the awards?
Pre-78/Historic Spanish
What is nice to see are the names from the past that I have known for many years, and one that springs to mind is the current class leader Steve Bisby. I remember him purchasing his 250cc orange Ossa ‘Gripper’ model, and it’s good to see the Spanish machine is still very capable of winning in the right hands. He has the upper hand at the moment with two wins from the four rounds, as Gary Younghusband has won one on his Bultaco and Dave Wood the other on his Ossa.
Britshock
North Wales based Phil Houghton has always been a pretty handy rider, and he took the win at round one at the Mow-Cop venue near Congleton on his Triumph twin. Nigel Scott took the second round win on his Triumph, with Martyn Wilmore the round three winner. Ian Peberdy usually rides the BSA Bantam we recently tested in the magazine, but on a Triumph Twin he took the victory at round four and now leads the championship. The mix between two- and four-stroke machines is very good to see.
Twinshock
Roman Kyrnyckyj on his SWM holds the slender lead, with two wins to second-placed Richard Allen’s one victory. Nick Draper was the other round winner on his 175cc Yamaha, proving that the series does not just cater for larger engine capacity machinery. It’s interesting to note just how much effort the riders go to as they try and bring their machines into the modern era. No matter what changes they make though they still need riding. In many cases riders chose between two- and four-stroke power for the different event venues, which is good to see.
The Clubman route is a little easier than the expert and it’s good to note that the organisers at each round so far have taken into account that some riders just want a good day’s riding. It gives them the option of a more relaxed course where they can have some fun riding with their friends, or a more challenging one on the expert route.