Rissington Round 6 – Sept 1st/2nd
Midland Championships
With lovely weather, a favourite location, 9 lap heats and a 12 lap final, what else could we ask for? With numbers on the increase, a good grid of 210’s lined up for this prestigious meeting, ‘The Midland Championships’. A big welcome back went to Tim Woodward a previous Long Circuit Champion after a 10 year break and Luke Plain guest driver for the weekend who, hopefully will do a full season next year. Ron Williams, a very enthusiastic new member and Novice joined us for his first race and was welcomed into the fold. A truly family affair with two Father and son teams (Tim & Adam Woodward, Dan & Tony Bury) and two sibling teams (Luke & Lee Plain, Shane & Wayne Cox)
Heat 1 (Saturday)
Disaster befell W. Cox who was pole sitter for heat one as he pulled off into Parc Ferme. This left an empty space on the front row to which Green and D. Bury took full advantage. Fowler lay in 3rd, Whyte 4th Lee Plain 5th and S. Cox 6th. By lap 4 Green still led with Whyte now not far behind in 2nd D. Bury 3rd, Lee Plain 4th Perkins had joined the top 6 in 5th with S. Cox remaining in 6th. Lap 6 saw Whyte and Lee Plain hot on the heels of Green and on the next lap Lee Plain was close enough to pass both, he picked off Whyte but Green held his line and he would have to wait till the next lap to snatch the lead which he duly did. On the last lap Whyte shot past Green to claim 2nd. On post-race scrutineering Whyte was deemed underweight and unfortunately excluded from any points. Therefore the results were:-
1st Lee Plain, 2nd Green, 3rd D. Bury, 4th Luke Plain who’d sustained an off on the first lap and had re-joined at the rear of the field, Perkins 5th and S. Cox 6th
Heat 2 (Sunday)
Whyte (having consumed a full English Breakfast J ) made the best start to lead Lee Plain, Fowler, W. Cox, Luke Plain, Perkins and the rest into the first corner whilst T. Woodward was making his mark by squishing the traffic cone to an inch of its life!!!! Due to the demise of Perkins, D. Bury was now 6th and Luke Plain demoted W. Cox to 5th on lap 3. On the next lap A. Woodward had claimed 6th. For the next 3 laps Lee Plain made several attempts to pass Whyte. Luke Plain had passed Fowler for 3rd spot and a battle royal between W. Cox, A. Woodward, Green and D. Bury ensued to claim 5th. Lee Plain eventually made his move on lap 7 to pass Whyte at the end of the Start Straight.
1st Lee Plain, 2nd Whyte, 3rd Luke Plain, 4th Fowler, 5th A. Woodward and 6th Green
Heat 3
Green once again made the best start although short lived as Lee Plain took the lead into the squiggly bit (I bet you all know which bit I mean, very aptly named by our lovable June!) D. Bury took up 3rd with Luke Plain 4th, Perkins 5th and W. Cox 6th. By lap 2 Lee Plain and Green had put some distance between themselves and Luke Plain now in 3rd. Lap 5 and Lee Plain had the length of the Start Straight between himself and Green who was seriously being hassled by Luke Plain. The following lap saw Luke Plain take second place at the end of the Back Straight to give chase to his brother. 4th place was being hotly contested between D. Bury, W. Cox, Whyte and Perkins. As the flag fell it was:-
1st Lee Plain, 2nd Luke Plain, 3rd Green, 4th D. Bury, 5th Whyte and 6th W. Cox
Final
The front row was hosted by Lee Plain on pole with Luke Plain alongside and Green in third. As the brothers were fettling the throttle waiting for sibling rivalry it was Green who got away first once again very closely followed by Lee Plain, Perkins, D. Bury, A. Woodward, Luke Plain and S. Cox. As they completed the first lap Lee Plain was at the front and by mid race distance he was streets ahead of Green in 2nd. Luke Plain and Whyte were having their own private race continually swapping places as were D. Bury and Perkins dicing for 5th. On lap 6 the vying pairs had bunched together, Whyte squeezed passed Luke Plain to claim 3rd as did D. Bury and Perkins to claim 4th and 5th thus demoting Luke to 6th. These 4 scrapped for the next few laps. By lap 7 Whyte had pulled away to leave D. Bury, Luke Plain, Perkins and now Fowler and Hancock joining in to take a look at what places could be on offer! These were the 5 to watch. By lap 10 Luke Plain had clawed his way back to 4th with D. Bury and Perkins not losing sight. Whyte unbeknown to Green was sneaking up behind and passed him to claim 2nd.
As the flag fell, on a great race to watch Lee Plain came in victorious winning the 2018 210 title of Midland Champion, 2nd Whyte, 3rd Green, 4th Luke Plain, 5th D. Bury, 6th Perkins, 7th Fowler, 8th Hancock, 9th S. Cox, 10th W. Cox. Ron Williams in 11th took first novice prize.