Round 5 Oulton Park 9 July.
- Details
- Category: F350 and Post Classic
- Created on Saturday, 23 July 2011 11:48
- Published on Saturday, 23 July 2011 11:48
- Written by John Moulton
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A mixture of red flagged races and dramatic retirements saw both Gordon and Julie Jones (TZ350) and Pat Gallagher/Sean Rooney (Derbyshire Suzuki) extend their championship leads in the FSRA F350 and Post Classic championships at Oulton Park.
Both Dave Chessmond/Smudge Taylor (BSK Windle) and Stuart Mellor/Mick Fairhurst (Martek TZ750) had cause to regret the fact that their races were run as part of the North Gloucester Club's Open and F2 events.
There was drama at the start of race one at Alan Longshaw/John Longbottom (Ireson YPVS350) went out with a broken reed valve on their 350. Gallagher and Merv Noble/Keith Brotherton (350 Ham-Yam) made good starts in their respective classes only for the race to be red flagged after an incident at Cascades involving F2 outfits.
The restarted race only lasted for two laps before another incident caused it to be red flagged as well!
The race distance was reduced to three laps and re-started.
In the Post Classics, Gallagher was first away and steadily pulled ahead of Mellor, taking victory by 3.78 seconds. Tony & Neil Wheatley (Ireson TZ750) continued to improve, taking a good third place, some distance ahead of Dave Tibbles/Wayne Kemp (Kawasaki Z900).
In the F350 class, Noble had a flying start, gradually pulling ahead of his rivals. Cheesmond passed his championship rival, Jones on lap two, only to run out of fuel on the final lap. The extra sighting laps and restarts had made the fuel situation extremely marginal for some of the F350's and Paul Owen/Phil Parkes (Shelbourne TZ350) suffered the same fate as Cheesmond. The numerous retirements, saw only Noble and Jones finishing in the F350 class, both crews gaining valuable points.
Thankfully, race two was not quite as dramatic. In the Post Classic class, Gallagher was again in great form, making an excellent start and putting in consistently fast laps to take the victory. Mellor's challenge only lasted as far as Clay Hill on lap one when an F1 outfit hit his machine, snapping an exhaust off.
This left Wheatley to exploit his newly found reliability to take a distant, but well deserved second place. Chris & Gary Fairhurst (Kawasaki 1100) survived an excursion onto the grass at Cascades on lap one, to take third spot, ahead of Tibbles who was struggling to get his outfit out of corners cleanly.
Ed Taylor/Ian Breakwell (Suzuki GS1000) retired when a carburettor drain plug came adrift on lap three. In the F350 class, Noble and Jones battled fiercely for a couple of laps before Noble's engine seized. Owen took over second spot, but could not mount a challenge on Jones.
Cheesmond went out at the end of lap one with broken clutch plates and, after a great start, Longshaw stopped with a coolant leak from a loose radiator cap.
Hopefully, the problems experienced by many crews can be rectified before the next meeting at Anglesey in August. The consistency shown by both Jones and Gallagher at this meeting could well be the key to the championship.
Report written by John Moulton.