The last BHR race meeting of the season at Cadwell Park was a very mixed bag for us, with a track day on Friday beforehand showing both 350 and 500 RE racers to be going well, the new rev limiter on the 350 helping the engine to stay in one working piece!
On Saturday, Steve Cotrell's Crusader 250 joined the lineup, as did Dave Darby's Ducati 250. The Crusader won its' first race and came 4th overall, as the 250 specials were out at the same time as the pre '62 class. The next 250 race saw the Crusader taking 2nd place and its' last race came to an untimely end when the gearbox packed up.
The 500 was on for a 4th place in its' first race, but this was stopped just short of halfway, due to a crash and restarted. Unfortunately for Ian and many others, some thought it was a straight restart, while others, including Ian thought a sighting lap was also being run again - it wasn't and Ian lost a lot of ground and finished further down the field in 7th place, 12th overall out of 35 starters.This machine suffered a loose ignition rotor in its' next race, costing some power and it took 7th place again. The last race for the 500 ended on the start line, when Ian let the clutch out to go, there was a loud bang and it stopped.
For the first 350 race, the little Clipper was flying round and guaranteed a 3rd place, by the look of things. Pressing Jack Hebb for 2nd place and an unlimited machine getting in their way, resulted in Ian coming off on the last lap. Checking the points scored, DGH reckons had Ian stayed put in 3rd place, this would have bagged him 3rd place overall in the championship, but he was 6 points short in the end, this for just a handful of races, six out of a total of 23 races all season. By the end of this meeting, Ian had followed up on Sunday with 2nd and 3rd places on this machine, after we straightened it out enough to scrape through scrutineering again on Sunday morning.
The Ducati took two second places for a 250 in the Ducati Championship, and one DNF for an exhaust pipe which had worked loose.
The high side for us is just how well the 350 is starting to go - it has been an uphill battle with the new engine configuration, but I think we have turned a corner. A big thanks must go to Rex Caunt Racing for all their help in getting those excess revs under control with the new ignition system !!
Sorry there are no pictures or videos of the action, but Cadwell is such a long circuit, there would be no point trying to film the action from any one spot. There was to be video footage, but somebody damaged the on board camera bracket on the 500, so this didn't happen after all
Just off to the workshop, to see what happened to the 500
B.W.