RECORD BREAKING WEEKEND OF CLASSIC ACTION
British Historic Racing’s third racing weekend of the year was held at the lovely one-mile-long Kent circuit of Lydden, just a few miles outside of Dover. It’s always good to see when circuit owners invest in their facility, and that’s certainly true here – money has been spent on new toilet and shower blocks and the control tower/timekeepers/ commentary building is excellent. In the world of Classic Racing these things mean a lot. Practice started promptly on Saturday morning, but shortly after the on-track excitement was stopped, apparently due to concerns about excessive noise. After a delay, this was sorted thanks to the efforts of the circuit management, which came to an agreement with locals and the racing programme got underway. A packed programme of 34 races and four parades ran without a hitch in perfect conditions – that and some ultra-competitive racing often ends in one thing – broken lap records and that is exactly what happened during a memorable weekend. In fact, a total of five new class and race records were set and some of them were not just by a fraction. Naturally, some of the expected riders starred in these new records, but that’s not to take anything away from the standard of riding and racing throughout, which was excellent across the field and there was more than one race that had close battles for the length of the races. In the 500cc races Bob Newby and Andy Widdowson, on his 400 Suzuki GSX, took
three wins, beating Dan Pritchard (Suzuki Cobra T500), Dave Matravers (Seeley G50), Matt Hebb and Stefan Radakovic (both 500 Manx). In the last race Matravers managed to displace Widdowson to take the win. Having made the journey from Belgium, cousins Rik and Donaat Wambacq had a superb weekend of racing in the 350cc/ducati/ Bantam class. They found no one could keep up with them and they resorted to scrapping with each other – often going for the same piece of track together. They brought with them two 350 AJRS that were pitched against the single cylinder Ducatis of Andy Hunt, Scott Harris, Geoff Mills and Jim Porter and the Bantams, most notably of Ian Scutt and Mike Powell. In the BEARS sidecar event, the experience of Steve Gagg and Sylvia Hase took three wins out of four races and also having a great meeting was the pairing of Shaun Mccain and novice Jack Hawkins with two second places and a win in the second race. In the combined sidecar and three-wheeler races it was three straight wins for Syd Ormrod and Sheelagh Neal in the 1298 mini-engined Curley trike, setting a new lap record for the event. They were chased hard all weekend by Bill and Maggie Tuer (1208 Morgan) and Ged and Kevin Abrahams with their Vincent Rapide. Another of the great weekend-long battles involved Derek Cripps and Andy Widdowson, both on Suzuki GSX-R 750s, Stacey Killworth (BSK BMW) and Kevin Van De Worp (1120 Moto Guzzi). Kevin struggled with the super heavy Guzzi, but was still lapping in the 47sec bracket, a mere second slower than Derek’s GSX-R’S lap record winning pace. The Supermono races were arguably the best of the two-day event ,with a three rider
battle involving Andy Widdowson (Honda CRF 450), Dan Ledger (650KTM) and James Luck (Tigcraft 690 KTM). Their first race ended in that order and then by the end of the third race they had each a win apiece, which meant we were all set for a cracking finale. Unfortunately, Luck had run out of luck and, at the North Bend Hairpin, he came together with the back of Andy’s Honda and fell, leaving an easy win for Dan. Luck must still be a happy man, setting the fastest lap of the weekend, with a 46.00sec – another lap record, beating his previous record by a huge 1.3sec – clear proof of the level of competition in this race. The Vespa Hornet of David Bristow made winning the three Stock Scooter races look easy with Justin Price, Jason Metiver and Graham Tatton (all on GP Lambrettas) chasing the remaining podium places. It was a similar story for Warren Wilkinson in the Super Scooter class with his immaculately prepared 250 SX Lambretta crossing the line first on every lap of their three races, and then he did it all again in the BSSO Memorial race. Stephen Wright, Justin Price, Jason Metiver and Stuart Day made up the rest of the leaderboard. The exception to this was John Woods on his Auto Gilera Runner, who took class wins. In the Over 50s Handicap race, Kevin Van De Worp muscled the big Guzzi to take the flag, but after the handicap was applied he was relegated to fifth overall, the win going to Graham Buller on his Norton 340 Lowboy, Tony Hazledean on the little Vincent Egli taking second and third going to Garry Hirons on the Interpol Norton. The handicap system also applies to the Newcomers’ Novice race, and although Jack Smith (390 KTM) took the flag, he ended up with third place in the results behind Ralph Coldwell (Norton Seeley), with the win going to Tony Haywood on the big Z1000 Kawasaki. Rik and Donaat Wambacq were back in action again, this time on their 250 Benellis, which looked and sounded really good, but there were no wins for the Benellis, but another lap record. The four races were all won by Matt Hebb on his K4 350 Honda and most certainly he was the man to beat. Rik couldn’t quite get on terms with him and had to settle for two second places and two third places, the remaining podium positions taken by Andy Hunt (250 Ducati) and Mike Powell (GP Royal Enfield).