The Donington Park GP circuit hosted the fourth round of the British Motorcycle Racing Club’s 2025 championships, marking the halfway point of the season.
In the Properly Protected Limited MRO Minitwins reigning champion David Twyford continued his dominant form with a clean sweep across all four races, further solidifying his lead in the championship.
In race one, he took a commanding win by three seconds, clocking the fastest lap and maintaining control from the front. Ronnie Harris and Darren Dowds rounded out the podium, with Harris just edging Dowds by a couple of seconds. Notably, William Howarth, competing in the Rookie Minitwins class, put in a superb ride to finish fourth overall, less than two tenths of a second behind Dowds, showing impressive pace among the more experienced riders.
A red-flagged and restarted race two made no difference to Twyford out front, as he once again secured the win, though Mitch Ducran, who took the runner-up spot, closed the gap to just over a second; one of the narrowest margins of the weekend. Harris completed the top three, finishing less than half a second behind Ducran, in what was a tightly bunched battle for second. With Howarth out of contention in the Rookie class, Joshua Crisp emerged as the top rookie in 20th overall.
In race three, Twyford continued his relentless pace, taking another comfortable win. Dowds managed to pull a near two-second gap over Harris, who himself was under pressure all race. Once again, Howarth impressed in the Rookie category, finishing just a tenth of a second off the overall podium in fourth overall.
The final race saw Twyford cap off a flawless weekend, crossing the line over five seconds clear of Dowds. It was Bill Harris - brother to Ronnie - who stood on the final step on the podium after Ronnie Harris incurred a 10-second jump start penalty, demoting him to fourth despite his on-track third-place finish. Rookie Minitwin winner, Crisp, took another class win and broke into the top-20 overall with a 16th-place finish, with Howarth not classified.
The TW Suspension Supertwins class also saw one rider dominate proceedings, with Alfie Davidson untouchable throughout the weekend. From pole Davidson steadily built an unassailable gap to his closest rival in each race, Darren Dowds, finishing 20, 15, twice 12 seconds clear respectively.
Dowds proved to be the best of the rest, bringing his Suzuki GSX8R home in second place in all four races. Though he couldn’t match Davidson’s pace, he was comfortably ahead of the chasing pack each time.
Toby Finnis was three times third.
ACU Team Green Junior Cup series leader Hudson Cooper took three of the four available wins over the weekend, but a crash on the opening lap of race two ended any hopes of a perfect score.
Race one confirmed that Cooper’s qualifying pace was no fluke as he took a dominant win from Lewis Jones, who led the Senior class. Arnie Carr secured third overall, nearly seven seconds off the lead.
With the series leader out of contention in race two, Carr emerged victorious, fending off Ormrod by just over half a second at the flag. Billy Carter claimed third overall.
Daryn Busa led the Senior class in seventh after Lewis Jones crashed out on the final lap.
Cooper bounced back in race three but his win came by the narrow margin of just a tenth of a second, beating Carr in a nail-biting climax. Jones returned to form, claiming third overall and another Senior class win, just over a second behind the victor.
The final race mirrored the intensity of the third, with Cooper just edging Carr once again, this time by three tenths of a second. Ormrod closed out a consistent weekend with third overall, narrowly ahead of Jones who dropped to fourth but still retained his Senior supremacy.
Alexander Mann was the standout across the RevdCoin BMZRC 250 MZ races, taking three victories out of four in commanding style. In race one, he crossed the line with a comfortable 12.6-second lead over Peter Woodall, who narrowly held off Harry Lamacraft by just 0.3 seconds in a close scrap for second. Mann continued his dominant form in race two, winning by 1.4 seconds from Andrew Wales, with Declan Ryan a further 7.3 seconds adrift in third.
Race three again saw Mann on top, holding off a consistent Wales by 12.3 seconds, while Woodall returned to the podium in third, fending off a trio of riders who finished within less than a second of each other. The final outing flipped the script slightly as Wales broke Mann’s winning streak, edging him by just six tenths of a second after a hard-fought race. Lamacraft rounded out the podium, 20 seconds adrift, but only 0.1 ahead of John Ashmead in a thrilling finish for third.
Ash Barnes converted pole into two wins in the Reactive Parts MRO Powerbikes and Clubman 1000, the other win going to Maximus Hardy in the final outing.
Barnes took commanding back-to-back wins in races one and two aboard his BarneyRacing Yamaha R1. Such was his pace that he built a significant gap over the chasing pack, finishing over 22 seconds ahead of Hardy in the opener and 25 seconds clear in race two.
Hardy, piloting his Honda Fireblade, couldn’t match Barnes’ outright pace but finished second across both races, keeping a comfortable margin to the rest of the field.
However, race three saw Hardy mount the top step of the podium with Barnes absent from the results, Hardy crossed the line over seven seconds clear of Luke Wallington, who took second on his Roxo Rodina Racing Honda Fireblade. Jake Marsh, also on a Honda, completed the podium after a hard-fought duel with Dawid Krawiecki - the third placed finisher in race two. Just a tenth of a second split Marsh and the Yamaha-mounted Krawiecki at the flag.
In the Retro 1000 class, Kieran Smith proved consistently dominant on his Suzuki GSX-R1000, taking top spot in class across all three races. His best result overall came in race one, where he secured third outright and kept the newer machinery honest throughout the weekend.
Clubman honours were hotly contested. Rafal Kisyk claimed victory in class in race one, but it was Sam Cranstone who emerged as the standout. Riding the Fortis Racing Honda Fireblade, Cranstone took Clubman wins in both races two and three.
In the MRO 600s, sponsored by DART Motorsport, Matt Pallett proved to be the rider to beat across the opening two races of the weekend, taking confident wins aboard his In:timber-backed Kawasaki.
Pallett edged out Henry Ross in race one by less than a second, setting his best lap on the final circulation to secure the win. Ross, who had secured pole in qualifying, couldn’t quite convert that one-lap speed into a race win. Zack Weston completed the top three.
Race two followed a similar script for Pallett, but this time the challenge came from Dale Thomas on the Triumph 675R. Thomas crossed the line only three tenths of a second behind, with Ross third, only half a second behind Thomas ensuring the top-three were covered by less than a second.
Thomas would finally seize the top step in race three. This time it was Pallett who had to play catch-up, but finished over two and a half seconds behind, and just ahead of Michael Tustin, who recorded his best result of the weekend with third.
Among the Clubman runners, Paul Bloomfield, riding the Martello Transport-supported Yamaha R6, took the class honours in all three races. His best finish came in race one, where he climbed six places to finish inside the top ten overall.
In the L&W Contractors Rookie 1000 and 600 classes, Mindaugas Storpirstis emerged as the standout performer, taking three victories from four races. He narrowly lost out to Tommy Jones in race two.
In the 600 class, Stuart Roberts was the class of the field across the first three races. However, in race four, Peter Cannons stepped up to take the win.
The Fyne Audio and SF Parts has proven to be one of the club’s most popular series in 2025, and again delivered the entertainment. Alfie Davidson was the victor in race one and the C2 winner, crossing the line just three tenths of a second ahead of Finn Chalk. Chalk was the leading C1 rider. C2 runner Daniel North rounded out the overall podium, and Ian Carter took C3 honours in 12th overall.
Race two mirrored the close battle at the front, with Davidson once again holding off Chalk, this time by an even narrower margin, with both riders dipping into the 1:47s. Liam McPherson improved on his race one result to claim third overall and second in C2, but the gap to the leaders was significant at over 23 seconds. Carter again clinched the C3 honours with a ride to 15th.
Chalk finally took an overall win in race three with Davidson a non-starter. North was second. Just fractions behind came Adrian Kershaw and Luke MacRae, both within half a second of second place in a thrilling dice for class honours. Oliver MacRae emerged to claim C3 victory in ninth overall.
Chalk capped off the weekend with another authoritative win in the final outing, his margin stretching to over 10 seconds. The real excitement played out in the battle for second, where Kershaw just held off MacRae by a mere one and a half thousandths of a second. In C3, Oliver MacRae doubled up with another class win.
The F400 class saw Aleisha Layton win the opening race, leading home Charlie Barnes by just under two seconds, with Luca Wilkinson further back in third. Layton continued her winning form in race two, extending her margin slightly over Barnes and maintaining her dominance at the head of the class. Ollie Sims was third as Wilkinson dropped out of contention on lap three.
It was the same top-two in race three, with Jake Donkersley third, but Barnes managed to secure the win in race four. Layton was second, and Donkersley again third.
Kieran Smith won all four races in the TBR Performance Thunderbike Ultra class across the weekend. In race one he bettered Morgan Creasey and Tyler Donovan, before winning ahead of Creasey again in race two. Daryl Dance stepped up into third.
In race three, Smith further asserted his dominance as Creasey again held off Donovan for second, who trailed him by a mere tenth of a second.
It was a clean sweep after race four with Smith ending the weekend unbeaten. He crossed the line five and a half seconds clear of Creasey. Donovan was once more in the mix, again finishing just a tenth of a second behind Creasey in third.
In the TW Suspension Thunderbike Extreme class Darren Corkett bagged a hat-trick of wins, with Tony Russo the other victor from the weekend’s action.
Darren Corkett won the opener from Russo and Mark Biswell. Corkett then doubled up in race two, again ahead of Russo with Biswell once again taking third.
Russo edged out Corkett for his solitary win in race three, again from Biswell in third, before Corkett made it three from four in the final race. He took the win by just two tenths of a second over Russo. Biswell also made it a clean sweep of third-place finishes.
The Clothing Kings Thunderbike Sport category Adam Jamison won both of Saturday’s races, before Daniel Mercer and Joe White shared the honours on Sunday.
Jamison won from White twice, with Mercer third in race one and Shaun Wallis third in race two.
On Sunday Mercer was victorious from Jamison and White, before White took his win with Jamison again second. Mercer was third.
Cadwell Park on 5-6 July hosts the next round of the Bemsee 2025 championships.