The Wirral 100 Club round 4 meeting was spread over 2 days. This was because they were also holding rounds of the ACU F2 Sidecars and Suzuki GSX-R Trophy races.
The programme was for each Wirral club class to have a practice session and 3 races – practice and qualifying race on Saturday, points and trophy races on Sunday.
Saturday
The classics were out in the second practice session (with the Forgotten Era bikes) at about 10:15am on Saturday with the qualifying race scheduled for 5:23pm – a long wait around doing nothing.
As it worked out, due to various accidents, the delays on Saturday stacked up so that everything was running late by the afternoon. At the last minute (after we’d all got our gear on and were ready to go) the Classics qualifying race got postponed to Sunday morning. There were a lot of very disgruntled classics riders!
Sunday
On Sunday the sun shone all day and there was virtually no wind, a real scorcher, most unusual for Anglesey.
The classics race included Classics up to 250, Classics up to 500 and modern F125’s.
Race 10 - Qualifying
For the qualifying race it was a random peg for grid positions (the results from qualifying giving the grid positions for the remaining races). I got a start position right at the back of the grid and then got stuck behind a novice F125 rider – his lines were so erratic that I couldn’t pass him safely even though I was getting held up by him – on one occasion he had me on the grass so I settled for staying on the bike and finishing behind him nearly at the back.
Race 18 - Points
After lunch we had our points race. This time I got a really good start and made sure that I held the novice 125 at bay – once I’d got away from him I could concentrate on the job in hand which was Martin Budden on a 250 Montesa (2-stroke single). We were each better on different sections of the track but very evenly matched overall which gave for a very exciting close race with lots of passing and enough confidence in each other that we were happy to go into the corners almost touching. I managed to pip him to the line by a quarter of a second!
Race 28 – Trophies
Our trophy race was the last race of the weekend. This time I got clear of Martin early on and set my sights on Richard von Mach on his 250 Arial. The 2-stroke twin Arial is quicker than the single cylinder 4-stoke Ducati but the Ducati’s handling is better in the corners. Little by little I closed the gap between us but I couldn’t quite get there, on 2 occasions I out braked myself, once going into the fast banked corner where I had the rear wheel in the air under braking, and once in the middle of the corkscrew when I nearly got it all wrong and ended up having to brake really hard to prevent myself from going off and lost a bit of time. Even though I didn’t catch him it was a really good race.
The first 250 across the line was given a penalty for a collision at the start so I got a 2nd place trophy.
After the initial disappointment of waiting around all day on Saturday, Sunday turned out to be really good so a most enjoyable weekend overall. I scored some points, picked up a trophy, stayed on the bike and got a 59.490mph lap (my target for the Anglesey coastal circuit is a 60mph lap so I’m nearly there).
It was good to see Howard there as well as Andrew and Judy with family and friends (and full catering 
), and of course Caroline who’s now joined the scrutineers as well as helping me out.
I’m now looking forward to doing Caldwell with the CRMC on the 9th/10th August.
Cheers,
Roger
Make some time for discussing future plans 
), and of course Caroline who’s now joined the scrutineers as well as helping me out.