It seemed appropriate that on a royal jubilee weekend A King should win at least one race, and so it proved at June’s EMRA meeting with Ashley King taking the second of the two Allcomers races and collecting two second places and a third in the course of the day’s racing at Mallory Park. Mikey Leeson took victory in the other Allcomers race, and these two have been constant rivals throughout the 2022 EMRA championships, to the point that they are exactly level on points after six races in the Mallory Trophy, and ten points apart in the Allcomers championship. This Sunday’s EMRA races at Mallory will see them head to head once more, where they will be joined by former World 125 champion Danny Kent on the Buildbase Suzuki Superbike, Leon Jeacock on his Specsavers Suzuki, Charlie Nesbitt on the Buildbase Superstock Suzuki, and Billy McConnell, currently third in the Superstock championship with race wins at Donington and Knockhill this year on the Jacksons Honda, plus Richard Cooper on the Hawk Racing Suzuki. Richard is in pretty good form just now having won races on his Kramer 890 and his CB500 Honda last weekend at Darley Moor.
On the subject of national championship contestants the 450 class has four contenders from the HEL Performance Junior Supersport championship, Charlie Atkins who is currently third in the championship, and fourth placed Kieran Kent, both of whom have had race wins in the early stages of that series,along with Cameron Brown and Annabel Thomas, both of whom have scored points in that furiously competitive championship. It will be interesting to see if John Lea can repeat his usual dominance in the 125-450 class on the GP125 Honda against brand new Supersport 400s.
The 400s are also going to be out in the open 500 class, which should provide last months double winner George Bedford with some stiff competition, although he is on a good run at the moment and was another to find himself in the winners circle at Darley on his 250 Honda.
Ricky Tarren has won all the 600 races this year bar one, when he finished behind Joe Howard, and Jed Bird has been next up every time, but former EMRA Supersport champion John Lea has found time to prepare his Triumph as well as the 125 Honda, so we can expect a three-man scrap for the wins on Sunday.
The CB500 class has an entirely well deserved reputation for close racing, as four different winners in six races would suggest, and a championship lead of one point for Darren Conneeley over Terry Allsopp (with Darren Faulkner just seven points back in third) would confirm. Last month’s race saw Faulkner spend the first half of the race fighting to stay ahead of Conneeley before losing the lead and spending the next four laps trying to get it back, succeeding when it mattered most, on the last lap and winning by one-seventh of a second. Expect more of the same on Sunday. Qualifying starts from 9.30, racing from 11.30.