Round 8 – DEP British Two-Stroke Championship
With some midweek rain and then a couple of glorious summer days together with the normal DEP track ‘prep’ Mildehall was in perfect condition for round 8 of the series.
As normal the 125’s get out on track first for their qualifying and what a glorious sound that is as 40 125 blast away, fastest in group 1 was series leader Jonathon Pettit on that super quick TM followed by KTM mounted Christian Taylor and another of the TM squad Jim Davies taking third.
Group 2 honours went to Yamaha’s Dave Willet who just edged out Sean Stevens and 125mx.com’s Adam Reynolds taking 3rd with just 0.23 between then. The final group was dominated by Jak Brunell who set the fastest qualifying time of all followed by wild card KTM rider Jake Preston and then young Jack Ploughman. With riders qualified into their respective groups and a very good size crowd it was time for the first Championship race.
125A
44 of the fastest 125 racers in the country prepare to blast down the start straight into that all so tight lefthander here at Mildenhall, out of the gate like a rocket was the KTM of Taylor and just inches away it was the Yamaha of Brunell, in the meele it was James Potters turn to suffer the injustice of a first corner crash caused by a few wayward machines !
Pettit jumped his way into third, Willet had wheelied past a few riders and within half a lap was all over Pettit and 4 corners later the TM pushed the front end and Pettit went down, taking avoiding action was James Kensington and Highway Oliver, Willet wanted to catch Brunell as young Jak is only a handful of points in front of him in the series, Brunell responded with some super quick laps to try a break away, Willet was held by Taylor for a few laps and it looked as if Brunell was long gone, Sean Stevens had a great opening lap and was in the top 5 banging bars with Davies and Reynolds while Pettit regrouped and was on fire on his way through the pack as he put the TM to work, Willet was looking good too as he closed in on Brunell but had a few seconds to make before he could challenge him, Plowman was having a great ride today sitting just inside the top 10, however Lloyd Morgan was not enjoying the black sand of Mildehall, the KTM youngster had cashed in qualifying and again early in this race, he stuck to his task but was eating plenty of roost on his charge forward, Ady Peedle had again made A group and looks real good on that 09SX, Dan Whitworth was unlucky when a bar banging session lead to him snapping the gear lever on his Suzuki.
Pettit in attack mode is a joy to watch as he fought all the way back into the top 5 and he was following team mate Davies, Brunell lost control of the Yamaha and Willet was close enough to pounce taking the lead and the moto win from Taylor and Brunell who managed to remount early enough to halt the charge of Pettit who came all the way through to a well deserved 4th sliding past Davies with a lap or so left, Stevens was solid holding off Reynolds in their moto long duel !
Race 2
Taylor launched off the line in the second moto and took a fine holeshot from Brunell, Pettit and Reynolds while midpack there was a cartwheeling Honda of Matt Coles who got hooked up with Charlie Statt and these two bit the dust hard ! Another victim of the circuit was Jimmy Scrafton who retired early on with the Kawasaki looking decidedly secondhand. Willet had tucked in behind a rejuevenated Highway Oliver and had Craig English for company on a real busy first lap, out front Taylor had his KTM nailed followed by Brunell and hounding these two was Pettit, Willet had made his way through to 5th place as Reynolds dropped to 10th after some early pushing and shoving, Pettit dived past Brunell and onto Taylors rear mudguard as Willet muscled his way into 4th Jack Plowman was on a mission holding of Stevens and Davies for a few laps, Joshua Scott, Ryan Turner and a returning Jamie Wilson were locked into a great battle swapping places at every corner, as were Kensington and Morgan.
Finally the top four closed up and the fun began, just 2 seconds split these and anyone of them could take the win, Pettit hounded young Taylor putting that TM inside and then outside of the leader and quick as a flash Petitt dived in and took the lead from a somewhat flustered Taylor who now had Brunell and Willet all over him, as these landed the big tabletop it was only Willet who took the wide fast line and that allowed him to jump the step-up and he flew alongside Brunell, who then jumped back past Willet on the finish jump but Willet had the inside line into the tight corner by the tunnel jump, that was pass made and Willet could now attack Taylor who began to defend and missed a few lines and Willet sneaked through followed by Brunell.
Now in lapped traffic Willet could see he was catching Pettit and fast, one of Willets passing places was an outside line which was wide, fast and very soft ! one attempt allowed the Yamaha to pull alongside the TM but Petitt had control of the next righthander, on the final lap and Willets second attempt the Yamaha slammed the small berm he had made in the laps previous only for that berm to breakaway and the Yamaha washed out and was stuck under the ropes, Brunell took advantage and slid into second place while Willet remounted in third, Davies had passed Stevens as he could see Reynolds coming through fast, he too was pursued by Harland and English in a hectic battle with Reynolds eventually passing a tiring Stevens.
Race 3
With the circuit now like a battlefield with holes, ruts and bumps everywhere a good start is essential if a rider has plans of finishing up front, it would be the howling TM of Pettit to take the holeshot followed by Stevens, English and Taylor. Willet was around the top tem mark with Reynolds and Oliver, Lee Holland took a soil sample early on along with English who dnf’d this moto as did Whitworth and Preston, the track was claiming plenty of riders and there were incidents everywhere you looked, Reynolds put in some scorching laps and was into 4th place only to suffer a rear wheel puncture, but such was his early pace it took a lap or so before anyone could pass him, then he set about getting to the finish with some decent points riding a very careful line as he wheel had begun to break up as well !
Out front Pettit was awesome, every line hit perfectly every hole skipped over as he screwed every last rev out of the TM, Willet was charging as always dragging Oliver along with him, the other TM of Davies had been blocked in for a couple of laps and he was fighting hard to break into the top ten, midpack is a scary place as theres just no room to move, Taylor could not pass Stevens which allowed the ‘ironman’ Willet to close right in on them, Taylor went missing for while but did rejoin the race but well down, Brett Wheeler had a round to forget as he seemed to have problems every moto, Harland had agreat start to thos moto but the last few laps he dropped of the pace with a mechanical.
Pettit took the win but did have to pick up the pace with a couple of laps to go as Willet had closed to within the 2 seconds and threatened to sneak the win with lap times 4 seconds faster than his qualifying time ? Third was Brunell with Stevens taking a fine 4th at the flag from Davies and Oliver, Reynolds did well to hold onto 10th with that broken wheel and finish just in front of standings challenger Wheeler.
B group summary
The mad axe men of the DEP always perform and today at Mildenhall would be no exception, Dan Ward had three real good starts and ran up front most of the time piloting the Suzuki into top positions, Alex Finnigan was having an up and down day with a DNF and a moto win to his name, Ashley Crossley always gives it 110% and did stand out as did Nick Banks who has returned from a recent injury!
He has finally found the secret to getting that KTM off the line and had 3 good starts at last and looked more than comfortable in the front group, normal holeshot king Mark Bland had a bad day at the office crashing more times than the stockmarket! Race action saw Lock take a holeshot, just inches ahead of Banks, Crossley moved to the front followed by Ward, early crashes saw Tom Holland, Dan Johnson and Mark McDonnel all down in one heap at the end of the long straight, Sammy Peedle and Steve Dixon had a virtual moto long battle until Sam went missing, young Jake Hamblin returned riding his brothers Yamaha only to throw it down the track right in front of the lead battle between Crossley and Banks, most spectacular jump of the day went to Finnigan who almost flipped the bike on a jump and just sat on and hoped, luck was with him as it came down vertical and he just raced away like ‘that happens all the time’
Their last race saw Crossley holeshot as Banks washed the front out and went down as the whole pack drove past before he could pick his machine up, Ward quickly moved to the front, Dixon had another good start and was in the top 10 followed by Finnigan, Long and McDonnel, Banks had got to work and had passed 15 riders in two laps eager to get to the lead pack, Adrian Rice was showing well in the top 10 until a crash put him out of action, Blandy was having his best ride of the day in 11th, and with only a few ’incidents’ he seemed happy with that, Banks had now blasted into the top 12 and was looking like he could actually get to the leaders, but some hard riding from Kendrick, Parry and Scott who refused to make it easy he time ran out when up to a great 5th place, but up front Finnigan took the win from Crossley, Ward and a very consistent Dixon.
TOP 10 Overall on day
Juniors
1st Morgan 2nd Taylor 3rd Plowman 4th Peedle 5th Howlett 6th McLean 7th Rusby 8th Scott 9thWells 10th Turner
Experts
1st Pettit 2nd Willet 3rd Brunell 4th Davies 5th Stevens 6th Reynolds 7th Oliver 8th Harland 9th Shires 10th Kensington
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