July 12, 2011 | Posted by admin

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I’d been looking forward to this meeting and it didn’t disappoint (apart from the rain!)

The Bewdley club put on a good meeting and the Bonanza was a big occasion, I arrived early but with a full program the pits had filled up early with even keener riders. Weather forecast for the day predicted rain as some stage but early on it was sunny. I caught up with a few riders in the pits and even Bob was there today to film the event (think I’ll have to purchase this dvd). So 9 crews (after Mike Gosling dropped out after practice) would compete in 3 point scoring rides and then a straight run final for the prize money, it was the same in the other classes with some of the country’s best 500cc solo and 1000cc sidecar riders in attendance. In my class we had the top 4 from last year’s British Final which is why I’d been looking forward to it; this could be a good marker for our progress this season so far.
I made a gearing change to the bike as the track was a good size and we went out later for practice, I took it easy for a few laps after watching the other crews struggle on the slick grassy conditions but although bumpy on the top corner the outfit had some grip and I figured we could go in hard on the first race.
In Heat 1 we came up against Harvey/Hogg, Dunn/Smith and Canning/George all of whom gated better than us, there was no grip on the inside. Up the straight Harvey/Hogg pulled away but Dunn and Canning were side by side with the later on the inside going into the top corner. They might have touched it was pretty close and I eased off just in case, but coming out of the corner Scott Dunn was ahead. We chased on for a lap and caught Brian Canning on the outside of the same corner exiting ahead of him, down the back straight and into the bottom corner tight on the inside with Dunn, we exited really close together and were side by side up the straight. Off the inner racing line was definately riding quicker for us and in a similar move to the Canning over take we went around the outside of Scott. I pushed on for a couple of laps but the British Champions Harvey/Hogg were clearly ahead and we came in for a good 2nd position. I got a little warning from the clerk of the course for clipping a few inside pegs but he saw my point that I was actually trying to avoid Dunn rather than under cut him.

In the time before our next heat we change a few settings on the engine and then the rain came! Not a lot but enough to make conditions tricky. The water settled on the track and the hard mud was now really slick, I spent a bit of time actually on the track with my Dad looking at the conditions, to us the inside looked unridable, wider where the loose mud was looked ok. We gated from the middle, again poorly. 2nd gear low revs and we didn’t move! Gutted, we were last away behind Dunn, Canning and Sinead McClaren (in that order) and going into the top corner I think we all locked up sideways because of the conditions. On exiting the corner I got us out wide looking for the grip and it worked a treat. We passed Sinead on the pits corner then Canning on the top corner, Dunn/Smith had pulled away from the others but we charged on and in the pits corner again wide on the gas we passed them to take the lead and a couple of laps on to the win. It was a great feeling coming from the back to win like that.

The rain kept coming and it didn’t look too good for the meeting, but they got thru all the heats and our last race seen us up against Shaun Harvey again but a few other crews had dropped out and it was just us in the race! From the outside we gated bad again! but the track was so slick and after pushing for 2 laps I had to ease off as visibility was poor.

Due to the conditions the finals were not run it was a case of counting the points from the heats, we came 3rd and were only beaten on track today by the British Champion so a pretty good result.

Fenlands meeting is up next in a couple of weeks, I recon it’ll take that long just to get the bike clean! oh and thanks to Mark Vickers for the race photo at the top of the page, nice one.