Ticket to ride Two wins as Lockey gets set for the TT
MORETON in Marsh driver Wayne Lockey has spent the first part of the season developing his new LCR outfit and with the Isle of Man TT, his main focus for the year, drawing ever nearer he still needed two signatures to qualify for the special licence to race the Mountain Course.
First outing for the new machine was at Oulton Park where all that was needed was a finish and with that in the bag, Lockey and passenger Mark Sayers headed for Mallory Park to get the final signature and give the LCR a good workout.
Lockey said: “We’ve had a lot of teething trouble getting the bike set up but after the race at Oulton we know where we’re going with it now.”
The bike ran well with Lockey and Sayers taking two comfortable wins their start at the TT was secured.
“The bike felt good and we were both comfortable on it” said Lockey. “We didn’t mess about, just rode the bike hard and it was nice to get a couple of wins. We were just 0.6 of a second off our best ever lap time, so the job’s a good ‘un! We’ve had a lot of help to get to this point and we’re very grateful to everyone that has helped us.”
The next day the team tested at Lla
ndow with Lockey’s wife Lynda on passenger duty and with a few more tweaks made, they are buzzing to get to the Isle of Man.
While Lockey and Sayers were away at the front, Gloucester’s promising newcomers Paul Kirby and Thomas Graves were heading for the best result of their road racing careers.
The day before they had been at Donington Park with NG Racing and despite never having been there before, they qualified well.
“It was a real eye opener for both of us after just riding at Mallory previously” said Kirby. “It’s fast and flowing – we learned an incredible amount.”
An encouraging fourth place resulted missing out on a podium spot by a fraction of a second.
Kirby said: “We were battling with the Dickinsons and were evenly matched, swapping places all through the race but we couldn’t quite get past at the end.”
The team made the short trip to Mallory Park and while there was no touching Lockey and Sayers, they were the best of the rest and took second place in race one – their best result so far.
“The bike felt like it was on rails after Donington” said Kirby. “Wayne was gone at the front and we wouldn’t have caught him in a million years but we had a good battle with an F1 outfit and got past him at the hairpin. We’re leading the EMRA championship now, which is great.”
The following weekend they were back at Donington for the BMCRC meeting and were going well in their first race until a puncture late in the race forced them to limp home for 11th.
Kirby said: “Following some advice in the paddock we made some changes to the outfit but we had no rear grip, so we put it back the way it was for race two. We lapped three seconds quicker than our previous visit and got second in class so we’re chuffed to bits.”