Local company sponsors feature race at Nutts Corner ISB meeting

The race will feature the fastest 23 riders of the day from practice and given decent weather should be one of the fastest of the day.

I would expect the likes of Carl Phillips, Nico Mawhinney, Gareth Evans, Mark Conlin and Jason Lynn to feature in this one.

Denver Robb is to make his first race appearance this year while interestingly I noticed that Alistair Kirk, a former Supersport championship winner, is also down to race. Kirk retired after winning the title, but is due to make a race appearance this weekend in the 600 Cup competition.

Sadly it’s the final race action to be held at the local track this year, and is the only ISB championship event to be held there this season as well. So come along and support the 
Mid Antrim club.

I’m told that practice will get under way at 9am. It’s hoped that they will be in a position to run a couple or maybe three races before the lunch break.

I have also been asked to request the all spectators use the overflow car park at the main gate of the track. There is a quite large entry for the meeting and with Nutts Corner being so small there will not be much parking space available. Some rule or other now means that almost three quarters of the area within the track can’t be used to park cars, or even be used for marshals to stand in.

ZOE WINS MISS MID ANTRIM

Zoe McKinnon, from Galgorm, has been crowned as the 2013 Miss Mid Antrim 150, taking over from Ballymena girl Carleen McCord.

With her knowledge of bikes and racing, Zoe (21) beat off a stern challenge from a number of other local ladies (and one man) to take the title.

I had the dreadfully hard job of speaking to her afterwards. Zoe told me: “I’m absolutely over the moon. I didn’t think I’d win it at all, but it’s 
just great.

“I’m really looking forward to my year and I’m know I’m going to enjoy myself. I’d like to thank the judges for voting for me.”

Her first task as Miss Mid Antrim will be at Nutts Corner this Saturday. I’m looking forward to working with her over the course of the year. She’s a lovely, happy, smiling girl, and will bring a lot to the job she now has.

NO MORE CAMERAS.

With immediate effect, the MCUI have ruled that riders who carry on board cameras on their bikes during races will have to have their own personal £5million 3rd 
party insurance.

The rider will have to have the camera and mount checked by scrutineers and he will have to have permission from the Clerk of the Course on the day to carry the equipment.

This move, apparently, is being forced on the MCUI by the insurance companies who insist that if a rider is injured or his bike wrecked due to a crash caused by a camera which falls off another competitors machine they will not pay out on the normal 
race insurance.

Riders are, understandably, annoyed by this rule change and a few have vowed to fight it, saying that rule changes cannot be made anywhere only at an AGM.

It is, though, worth noting that it’s not a ban as such, rather a change in rules that means that riders will have to satisfy the scrutineers that the cameras are properly mounted and that they are covered by insurance. To be honest, I had wondered for a while now why forward and rear facing cameras went compulsory on race bikes. It would mean that riders were covered in case of a claim against them in case of a collision. It would also make incidents of alleged yellow flag infringements easier to investigate.

ARMOY UPDATE

Just as I prepared to submit this week’s notes, I had an email that River Ridge Recycling were to sponsor, for the third year in succession, the Armoy road race meeting. This year will be the fifth Armoy meeting.

Now called Bike Week, the Armoy races will take place on the 26th and 27th July in the Co. Antrim village. I will have further details as and when I get them.

Roy Adams