Round 2 Race Report- MCN Festival, East of England Showground
Round two of the Dirt Track Riders Flat Track Nationals saw all five of the Greenfield riders head to the East of England Showground, Peterborough for a weekend of action packed racing at the Motorcycle News Festival of Motorcycling.
After a rain out at the last round, Fergus Bluff, the team's
Toby Johnson, the team's youngest rider also took to the track on Saturday morning, racing in the Youth Junior class. Toby has made huge improvements with his riding since his last outing on track and was riding noticeably better as the day went on. Toby secured a fifth in his first heat, then finishing in third in his remaining heat races, with some bold passes on his competitors. Toby made an excellent start in his double-point final, confidently working his way through the pack, unfortunately due to a mechanical issue Toby had to retire from his final. Thanks to earlier good results Toby was still able to finish fifth overall giving him some valuable championship points, we aim to resolve Toby's mechanical issue and get him back up and running as soon as possible, but we feel that Toby learnt a lot from this race meeting.
After missing the first round of the series, Max Inman, the Youth Senior rider joined his team mates at the MCN festival for his first ever race on his KX-F 250. Max finished his day's racing in second place, showing continuous improvements each time he went out on the bike. The 250 is a big step up from his CRF 100 and Max really is getting to grips with the handling of a much larger and powerful bike. We're really looking forward to watching Max progress over this season, he's already proved his potential and ability to learn fast.
Saturday's live show at the festival saw the Pro's take to the track to compete for their share of round two's championship points. Owing to the nature of the meeting (a scheduled show as part of the festival's entertainment) there was a very limited time frame, which meant reverting to the original race format instead of the new system of timed qualifying. Saturday's line up saw some familiar faces return, including five time British Champion Aiden Collins and American Flat Track racer Johnny Lewis, their presence at the meeting ensured for some exciting racing.
Gerard Bailo was on his usual form, after finishing fourth in the first round of the Spanish Championship two weeks prior, Bailo was hungry for more top results. In a full grid lineup Gerard was able to secure a fourth in his first heat race, progressing to a second place finish in the next heat and winning his final heat race of the day respectably.
George Pickering the team's other Pro rider, secured classy third pace finishes in all three of his heats, generating him enough points for a middle row start- taking sixth grid pick for the final.
The Pro final built up a large crowd in the stands, with the anticipation building the light went green for old favourite Aiden Collins to burst to the front of the pack, thanks to another brilliant start. Gerard initially raced his way round in third position, managing to hold Johnny Lewis off for a significant proportion of the race but Johnny never deterred and tried every move possible to eventually aggressively, yet sensibly pass Gerard up the inside and create space. After a steady start Pickering was able to pass Richard Mason around the outside, to then set his sights on Rob Mear, after making an inside pass on Mear coming out of turn four George was able to concentrate on catching fifth place Dijkstra. The chequered flag waved with Bailo finishing fourth and Pickering crossing the line in sixth.
Thanks to Paul France and William Hales for the use of their images.
Words by Leah Tokelove.
