National treasure hunt
By TMX Archives on 3rd Jun 15
Cold, wet and windswept and that was just series promoter Darren Hudson. The fourth round of the Scott Amateur Nationals reached its most northerly point over the weekend and Dean Moor, high in the Cumbrian fells, wasnt taking any prisoners...
With bad weather forecast for Sunday a decision was taken to switch the weekend programme around and run three blocks of racing on the Saturday and two blocks on the Sunday.
The Kleenrite/TMUK 250cc two-smokers got a chance to race with the MX1 class for the first time this season and the leading pre-mix men didn't disgrace themselves against the four-strokes.
Top enduro rider Jake Gowan was the best of the strokers in all five races and got as high as second in both of Sunday's motos. Ty Kellett, Harry Bradley and Luke Gidney also looked comfortable banging bars well inside the top 10 with the thumpers and it was Kellett who grabbed second from Bradley.
"It's been a good weekend and I wanted to tick this track off my list,” said Kellett who'd driven for eight hours to get to Dean Moor. "I was happy with my riding but maybe not so happy to have been beaten by someone with a numberplate on their bike!”
With Gowan not registered for the championship Kellett made the long drive worthwhile by extending his championship lead over Gidney and Bradley.
The only MX1 rider Gowan failed to beat at least twice was Graham Riley. Series leader heading into Dean Moor, Rob Clitheroe followed Riley home in the first two motos on Saturday but his weekend went belly-up in race three when his foot got caught under the bike.
He toughed it out to finish fourth in class but pulled out of practice on Sunday and has since been diagnosed with ligament damage in his left ankle which has effectively ended his championship challenge.
With Alex Rach not making the trip to Dean Moor it's James Lassu who moves into a clear championship lead after carding 3-3-2-2-2 in Cumbria.
Stacey Fisher was another AWOL championship challenger, the runaway Ladies class leader choosing instead to travel to France for the GP where she scored WMX world championship points at Villars-sous-Ecot.
In her absence 19-year-old Catherine King made the long journey up from Wiltshire worthwhile with three wins, a second and a third. Tanisha Thomas chased her hard and won the third moto to take second ahead of Nadiya Jones and move into the series lead.
FOR FULL REPORT & PICTURES SEE TMX NEWS, THURSDAY, JUNE 4 (ISSUE 1974)
