Tuesday June 30, 2009 at 4:03pm
Blaxhall Pits hosted round four of the ACU British Open and the ACU British PAR Homes Under 21 Solo Championships on Sunday 28th June. The Club put in a tremendous effort to ensure the circuit was in perfect condition for the day’s racing and produced one of the best events of the year.
As dry hot weather was predicted, John Blyth the Clerk of the Course was out at 7 O’clock Sunday Morning with the water bowser ensuring that dust would be kept to a minimum and that the track would ready for the support classes to take to the track at 09:15.
The British Open riders hit the track first for their 10 minute free practice session before the clock started ticking for timed qualification. It was Relentless Suzuki’s Martin Barr who hit the top of the list with a 1:39.017 on his first lap with LPE Kawasaki mounted Kristian Whatley just 0.55seconds behind, also set on lap one. Series leader Brad Anderson on the PAR Honda was third a further 0.4 seconds adrift.
Scott Elderfield on the PAR Honda was heading the filed on the track for the PAR Homes sponsored Under 21 Qualifying and set a time of 1:41.411 on his second flying lap. Nobody could get within a second of this time with KTM UK rider Graeme Irwin coming close with 1:42.781. Moto One KTM’s Shane Carless got third pick of the gate having posted a 1:42.860.
Race one of the British Open Championship saw series leader Anderson overhaul both Scott Columb and Kristian Whatley to take a slender win of just 1.2 seconds from Whatley after 17 laps in the blistering heat. Carl Nunn on the MVR-D Suzuki passed Columb to take third place nearly 10 seconds adrift.
Shane Carless took off at the head of the PAR Homes Under 21 Championship race one with PAR Homes Honda’s Scott Elderfield in hot pursuit, it wasn’t long before Elderfield hit the front and took off to secure a 4 second victory over Careless. KTM Mounted Graeme Irwin had a lonely race in third place 6 seconds behind Carless with Scandinavian Rickard Sandberg in fourth on the Twisted 7 Honda.
The PAR Homes Under 21 Championship is once again proving to be a hard fought contest. Irwin came to Blaxhall as the series leader but with another win in the second race Elderfield took the overall and maximum points haul. Carless once again finished runner up. A race long battle ensued between Rickard Sandberg and Irwin with Irwin finally taking the third place. With two rounds to go Elderfield, Carless and Irwin all sit on top of the table with 166 points each, Elderfield top with four wins, Carless second with two wins and Irwin dropping to third not having secured a race victory as yet.
The Woodbridge club once again put on a superb event doing justice to this popular series. The next round is north of the Border at Leuchars in Scotland on August 2nd.
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