Armoy, The Race of Legends

Six days later the action moved north to Armoy, where, thankfully, there was no sign of the torrential rain that forced the abandonment of last years races, in fact it was clear skies and sunshine all weekend long.

The Armoy circuit is located at the northern tip of Co. Antrim, not far from the Giant’s Causeway. It’s a very fast, sweeping circuit of three miles per lap and it provides plenty of variation to keep riders focussed.

Dominic Herbertson took pole in the Junior Classic race on his Honda 350, but clutch issues forced his retirement very early in the race, so we never got to see what might have been. Instead Barry Davidson and Ed Manly got stuck into a two-way battle, which saw Manly raise the lap record by almost 3mph to a new high of 83.432mph but, try as he did, he couldn’t quite manage the win, finishing half a second behind Davidson after six white-hot laps. George Stinson took third, a few tenths of a second ahead of Ian Thompson.

Brian Mateer fought long and hard with Richard Ford to take a narrow win in the 250cc class, while Kyle Parks took third.

In the Unlimited Class Herbertson reappeared on pole, this time on a Honda 500/4 and he made no mistakes on his way to victory, finishing a good five seconds ahead of Mark Purslow, also 500/4, but it was Ford, who finished third within touching distance of Purslow, who set an all-new lap record at 87.185mph and got the biggest cheer from the crowds.

In the 500cc class Davidson made it look relatively easy as he reset the 500cc lap record to 83.404mph on his way to a comfortable 25sec win ahead of John Pemberton who, in turn, finished 25sec ahead of third-placed Freddie Stewart.