Swordy dishes out the silverware
February 25, 2008
THE Hants & Dorset Youth Motocross Club recently held their presentation evening with Molson Kawasaki star Stephen Sword doing the honours.
Whilst the 2007 season was blighted by a wet summer and dire rain, the action on the track was to be anything but; even the final two block round at Henstridge in the ubiquitous rain being many a spectators’ highlight of the season, watching riders slip and slide around whilst battling for those precious last few championship points.
Lee Cummings wrapped up the expert group in fine style with plenty of race wins and overalls to his name. Given a few more holeshots it could have been easier for him to break away from the dogged efforts of two stroke mounted Brett Wheeler who was never far behind Lee’s booming KTM all season. Josh House, gated well as usual and to finish behind these two must make relinquishing his expert crown a little less painful.
Whilst Ashley Green was probably the ante post favourite to take the years novice honours no-one had told Mike Toon who sprang out of the traps early on and gave the others plenty to think about to take a ten point lead by round four. Ash knuckled down to grind out the results and take the championship whilst Mike, suffering from tennis elbow, dodged the late season charge from ever improving Luke Pritchard to hold on to second place.
The top five of this years senior crop all tasted overall championship honours at one time or other during the season but it was Ben Weeden’s name that frequented the top rung more than any other and this helped him to win the group (and forget last season’s injury) leaving Steve Bain and Craig Durston to battle for the final podium placings ahead of senior veterans Chris Cave and Tom White.
Mitchell Bligh fully deserved to be crowned Big Wheel 85 Champion with some stylish wins and consistency of the highest order, scoring 493 from a possible 495 points! Eddie Yule and Ross Churchill filled various places among the top six throughout the season and invariably if one went missing then so did the other, it was that close such that eventually they were split by just four points in Eddie’s favour.
In the Small Wheel 85 Championship Olli Jones and Louis Schmidt renewed their rivalry from the juniors and the outcome was the same with wet weather specialist Olli taking the verdict to be runner-up behind the group’s run-away leader Darren Wingar who had the group sewn up quite early on thanks to his many victories and maximum scorecards en route.
Kieran Whitlock improved on last years fourth place junior trophy to make it this year’s group winner owing to great consistency, never being out of the overall top four all year. Another to climb up the junior rankings this year was Jack Dudman who was kept from the runner-up spot by the club’s best placed girl Jorja Johnson.
Harry Pritchard took no prisoners in his quest to take the auto title this year and at most meetings the number sixty-seven bike could be seen howling along up front. Although he didn’t have it entirely his own way, as both Sam Lycett and Oliver Curtis popped up to spoil his party with overall wins apiece.
The committee would like to thank Stephen for his excellent service in handing out some 250 awards and wishes him and all our riders a very successful 2007 season.
2007 CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL POSITIONS
Expert Inter 100 1) Lee Cummings 1) Mitchell Bligh 2) Brett Wheeler 2) Eddie Yule 3) Josh House 3) Ross Churchill 4) Marcus Feltham 4) Lewis Cave 5) David Thomas 5) Cherie Wingar 6) Scott Wallis 6) Josh Hipgrave
Novice Inter 85 1) Ashley Green 1) Darren Wingar 2) Mike Toon 2) Olli Jones 3) Luke Pritchard 3) Louis Schmidt 4) Pete Barns 4) Stuart White 5) Kevin Burgess 5) Kayleigh Durston 6) Ben Rose 6) Jack Howe
Senior Junior 1) Ben Weeden 1) Kieran Whitelock 2) Stephen Bain 2) Jorja Johnson 3) Craig Durston 3) Jack Dudman 4) Chris Cave 4) Bradley Jones 5) Tom White 5) Oscar Schmidt 6) Dom Gould 6) Liam Compton
Auto 1) Harry Pritchard 2) Sam Lycett 3) Oliver Curtis 4) Thomas Shutler 5) Jordan Allen 6) Lucy Calvert
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