Westerdale success in rain at Mallory Park

THE latest round of the East Midlands Racing Association motorcycle racing championships took place at Mallory Park under dark skies and heavy rain, with local racer Paul Westerdale seeking to expand his championship leads as the season heads towards its close.

Campaigning his Suzuki GSXR1000 in both the blue riband BuildBase Mallory Trophy and Tamworth Yamaha sponsored Allcomers class Paul had made several changes to the big Suzuki before the upcoming meeting after losing out to championship rival Curtis Wright at the last round.

With the rain falling the grid formed up for the opening Buildbase Mallory trophy race.

Paul got a tentative start slotting in behind Rayner Clarke and Lee Weston and although happy to let someone else take the lead whilst he settled in, Paul realised very quickly that the chopping and changing of places was letting Rayner pull away at the front. A change of plan was needed.

Passing Lee Weston on lap two and then following up with a pass on Rayner Clarke around the long right handed Gerrards, Westerdale controlled the race from the front, making it home to take the win by four seconds.

In the first Tamworth Yamaha All Comers race Paul again started from pole position taking the lead from the start and leading for the full race distance to finish with a comfortable fourteen second lead from second place Mikey Leeson.

As the weather started to ease and the track rapidly drying the second Buildbase race had Paul wondering about making a change to a dry rear tyre.

On the way to the grid he noticed all his championship contenders had made the same decision to stay on the wet tyre, despite what was rapidly becoming a dry track. Paul took off from the start settling in to second place behind Curtis Wright, his main championship rival. In what was quickly becoming a battle of wits and nerve as to who dared pushed the overheating tyres to the limit Curtis missed his braking point leaving just enough of a gap for Paul to take the lead, holding it to the line pipping Wright by just one hundredth of a second.

For his final race of the day Paul made the decision to change to dry tyres, only for it to rain once more five minutes before the race started. With time only enough to change to a wet front Paul nonetheless went to the grid just as the heavens opened, it seemed that this may be a gamble too far.

Having nearly slid off on the warm up lap and seeing most of the other competitors had opted to stay on the wet tyres Paul retired out of the race.

Paul now leads the BuildBase championship by sixtyone points and the Allcomers championship by thirty two points - with three rounds and two rounds left respectively and with one of those rounds dishing out double points it is still all to play for.