Fascinating day's racing at Bishopscourt

Promoted by the Temple club, the meeting was well run, and despite one red flag incident and a couple of scares with the weather that caused racing to be held up for a few minutes, racing was still done and dusted in plenty of time.

In the small classes, the GP125 Newcomers and the Production 125, we had yet another couple of first class races.

The GP class has been all about Jason Lynn and Conor Parkhill of late. In the first few meetings, Ballymena's Sam Wilson monopolised the races, but a nasty crash at Kirkistown meant that Sam's chances of the championship have disappeared. He badly broke both wrists, and is still in plaster, and hopes to get some of the pins out of his hand this week.

Jason Lynn hit the front in the first race, and steadily pulled away from Conor Parkhill. Whether Lynn made a mistake or not I don't know, but within the space of a lap, the lead disappeared, and Parkhill was right back in his wheeltracks. At the line there was just .9 of a second between them, while Stephen Gurney overhauled Antrim lad Jonny Hanna.

Young Hanna, brother of top 250GP rider Mark, had been in a steady third place until Gurney got his head down.

Lynn took almost half a second off Robert English's track record, lapping at 1:17.776 on his fourth lap.

He didn't rest on his laurels, though, because in winning the second race, Jason clipped another .1 off his own record. Simply brilliant. The record now stands at 1:17.671.

Run concurrently, the 125 Production bikes had a good turn out. In the first race, young Ballynahinch lad Korie McGreevy performed his usual demolition job, finishing .5 ahead of Aaron McBride. There were another 13 finishers, and all were lapped.

In third place was Adam McLean. McGreevy was a non finisher in race two, McLean taking the race win from McBride and Dromore's Reece Davidson, who was on the bike that Ahoghill's Luke Johnston raced last term.

In the Supersport 600 class, there was a maiden win for Nico Mawhinney, and a fantastic one it was, too.

On the first lap the Castledawson rider was well down the order, but steadily plugged away, until he was able to force his way into the lead with a couple of laps to go. Timmy Elwood, brought his R6 into second place, just .2 behind Mawhinney, with Derek McGee third.

Another lad who has improved greatly over the course of this season, Carl Phillips, grabbed the race win in the second outing. Nico Mawhinney was second, .4 back, while a further .2 adrift was Elwood.

Timmy Elwood was the big winner of the day, as far as the overall championship goes. Two top three finishes kept him in with a shout of the Clubmans title, as his main rival, Sean Hurley, clearly not happy with his bike, could only manage a couple of 10th places. Elwood finished the day taking 36 points out of his rival.

The first Senior race was red flagged, with the result being taken at the end of the 8th lap of 10. Paul Gordon was flicked off his Yamaha, but thankfully, wasn’t too badly hurt. Paul Dornan took the race win, with Daniel O'Connell, making the long trip from Dublin, grabbing second over Anthony Rogan.

In the second race, O'Connell took the lead, and then Dornan seemed to slow, with his bike smoking slightly. Dornan still finished, but was 5.8 seconds back. Banbridge man Rodney Singleton, recently returned to racing after a few years of a retirement, came home in third place, well behind Dornan.

Two of the best Pre97 races we have seen all year featured runaway championship leader Alan Kenny, Melvin Hollingsworth and Andy Brady. In the first race Kenny took the race win, but was hounded all the way to the line by Brady. Melvin Hollingsworth was third, but dropped off the pace in the closing stages.

Hollingsworth slid off in race two, while involved in a close race with Kenny and Brady. Even though Brady broke the track record, it wasn't enough to catch Kenny, who took the race win, this time by just .8 of a second. Aiden Fitzpatrick moved up into third place after Hollingsworth fell.

Spare a thought for Jason Kelly from Castlewarren, Co. Kilkenny. After driving for over 6 hours and sleeping in his van, Jason, who suffers from Muscular Dystrophy, broke a throttle cable in practice and didn't even get to race. He was stiff laughing at his bad luck when I left him. What a star!

The national races both went to Marshal Neill. He beat David Haire and Richard Rea both times.

CHAMPIONSHIP POSITIONS.

Thanks to Ivan Davidson, Ulster Centre registrar, I have the up to date Clubmans Championship positions after Saturday’s racing.

In the GP125 class, Jason Lynn leads on 222 points, and it would take a complete disaster for him not to win it. He is 36 points ahead of Sam Wilson, who is still out injured. Third place is Conor Parkhill, a further 21 points back.

There’s 57 points separating Lynn and Parkhill. Korie McGreevy heads the Production class on 225. Out of 12 races McGreevy has won every single one he finished, and has only DNF'd 3 times. Adam is second, on 195 while Aaron McBride is third on 1`78.

Alan Kenny has the awesome record of 12 races, 11 wins and one DNF in the Pre97 class. He sits on 275 points, 95 ahead of James McCann. Melvin Hollingsworth is third on 159.

Sean Hurley still leads the Supersport 600 class, but following a couple of 10th places at Bishopscourt last Saturday, his lead was slashed by Timmy Elwood. Hurley has 182 points to the 170 of Elwood. Carl Phillips is third on 149.

There’s just a single point separating Daniel O'Connor and Paul Dornan at the top of the Senior class. Dornan, on 222 points, trails the Dublin man, with Anthony Rogan in third on 168.

MID ANTRIM 150 THIS WEEKEND

It’s back to the roads this weekend, with the Mid Antrim 150. I have a full preview on pages 46-47, so there's little point in my saying anything else here.

I will have a full roundup in next weeks paper, along with photos of all the action.