Twinshock Scramble Club Scotland

Round 1Wellington School

Leadburn Penicuik

Sunday 23^rd March 2008

Report by

Chris Montignani

With the Sunday morning Midlothian landscape taking on the appearance of a traditional Scottish christmas card, a light fall of snow greeted the Scottish Twinshock Scramble Club members at Leadburn near Penicuik as they arrived to hold Round 1 of their inaugural 2008 championship.

A few hardy souls (or is that complete nutters!) decided to camp overnight at the track in the sub zero temperatures in order I suppose to wake suitably refreshed for the day ahead, but when morning arrived you could have mistaken Penicuik for a mild Siberian winter as a the snow greeted the Stranraer faithfull John Mitchell and company when they pulled back the drapes in their campers to reveal all.

Local man “Spud” the Penicuik track builder, and landowner the beautiful and delectable” Carla” (with her ample buns…burgers and bacon rolls I might add) had been hard at work for days to make sure the venue was in prime condition to host this event and as usual we were not disappointed.

There was not as much pristine machinery on display as there was at this meeting last year, although I did manage a brief glimpse of a very rare Italian crosser called an “Aspes” 250 which actually looked the part but it never seemed to appeared on the score sheet at the end of the meeting.

Practise was held up somewhat due to the Ayrshire weans namely Ali Henderson, “Gaz Whyte”, big Rick Caldwell and the McKell brothers having their photo’s taken on their machines, and not only that they even wanted to roll Easter eggs down the Leadburn hill.......awwwww.

But more importantly we did struggle to get marshals to volunteer to assist the lap scorers in order to get the meeting underway, it would very helpful to the club and all the riders if any person not involved with assisting club members or their mates during the day could volunteer for marshalling, because as you know we cannot start a meeting without them.

First to the Penicuik start line were the Pre77 riders, where Davie McAulay showed his class by taking the overall result from Dunoon man Grant McLure on his vintage Maico, Scottish Classic Club and Pre 77 racing supremo Tommy Anderson was very quick on his Husquvarna in third, Tommy would have done better had it not been for mechanical gremlins that slowed him down in race two, Tom Dickie was also back piercing everybody’s eardrums again with his little CR 125 Honda and managed to finish in fourth place.

I thought that Roddy Ross would have faired better in the Pre77’s with all the money he lashed out on his bike through the winter at Dunfermline Motorcycles (I think the bill came to £2.42p + vat) but all I saw on Sunday was Roddy’s bike either lying on it’s side at various locations throughout the circuit or him trying to push it back to the pits,…. Roddy see Joe and he’ll sort you out with a new quality bike for the next round at Cardenden!.

In the Fourstroke class young James McLean on his Fourstroke Yamaha fulfilled a lifetime’s ambition to beat his arch rival Keith Baird to the overall result and he did it in great style with a superb performance from the young Blairingone man so congrats to James, Andy Malloch did just enough to finish third overall on his big Rotax from Strath Garage’s finest Ian Clark in fourth on the big CCM Yamaha hybrid thingy ma‘bob.

The brand new for 2008 over 50’s class was well subscribed with almost a full line-up of riders, club scrutineering man Steve Cruikshank on his CR Honda took the overall win despite taking a bad fall at turn two in the second moto as he collided with another rider, big “Hagar” Mick Collier ended with the runner up prize riding his Rotax Maico, while the Ayrshire charger and general all round good guy “Jock McKell” was third on his CR Honda, but Davie Donald literally cruised round to finish in fourth.

A welcome return to racing for this year saw Robert Smith win the top honours in the Over 40’s on his rapid 490 Maico, but last years championship winner John Mitchell had to settle for the second place prize after a titanic battle with Smith over the three races, race one would see both riders in a wheel to wheel tussle until the final corner of the last lap where Smith performed a do or die move on Mitchell down the inside to secure the overall win… superb stuff.

Mike Dobie also tried a brave passing manoeuvre on his racing mate Calum Sangster in race one but made a complete bollocks of it locked the front wheel and….. well the rest is history and it was all captured on video for prosperity and then committed to the Monty archives to be resurrected at the end of 2008 to be included in this years “Twinshock Crash Video” .

The Twinshock 250 riders served up exciting racing for the large frozen crowd with the Gary Allan Trophy winner Ian Shedden taking first overall position from Mike VanDerMerWe on his newly acquired Maico, James Colligan who eventually finished third overall hoped for better results for his day’s hard work but a tangle of handlebars with Ian Cormack’s CR 250 Honda soon after the start of moto 2 would see both riders eat the Penicuik dirt with Mr Colligan not best pleased, but both riders were thankfully uninjured and soon remounted to finish the race.

The Evolution riders were in fine fettle for the start of 2008 and were flying round the Penicuik circuit, and it was a virtuoso performance from big Davie Pullar on his CR 250 Honda who was almost uncatchable over the three moto’s, he eventually took the overall prize from Evolution Mr nice guy John Howard in second, but a recent convert to the Evo class from the Monoshocks last year was Twinshock Club director Bill Bruce who was well pleased with his third place finish on his newly acquired Kawasaki KX 250.

It was business as usual for Paul Chiappa in the Twinshock 500’s, who although Paul was racing with a shoulder injury he sustained in the Le Touquet Enduropale meeting in France in January he still managed to do just enough to keep John Richards and Ian Robertson's YZ Yamaha at bay to win the class, this was also despite Chiappa taking a fall in moto 1 soon after the start when (allegedly I might add) "Kenso" (Mark Kenny) pushed him out wide and Chiappa got slightly of line and hit a rut with his front wheel and was catapulted of his machine, but it was all in a day’s work for the current Twinshock champion.

Standing room only was the cry from the start line as the Monoshock A class thundered into action, these guys surely supplied the best racing of the day, Craig Stevenson, Jason Martin, and Kevin Blackwood were in superb form, Stevenson would emerge as the overall victor virtue of his two wins from Blackwood in second and Martin on the brand spanking new TM in third, John McNeil (Monoshock B class winner) decided to get his monies worth of racing for the day and raced in the A class as well, as he Stevenson and Martin had a fine old tussle throughout the day.

Angus McLeod also booked his place in the end of the year “Crash Video” as he bit the dust in moto 2 with a spectacular slide……“honestly these motocrossers will do anything to be immortalized on film”.

In race three McNeil bashed bars with Stevenson throughout the race and exchanged places frequently, but Stevenson new he was still going to be the class winner overall and let McNeill go through to open a lead, but then McNeil fell from his machine and went through the ropes (narrowingly missing a female spectator holding her young kid.....so be warned) at the rutted section of the track but he soon remounted to finish, superb racing nevertheless from these riders and excellent motocross entertainment.

The Monoshock B boys were equally entertaining with class winner John McNeil absolutely flying on the Honda from Greg Maxwell on the KTM in the runner up spot despite Greg taking a win in race one, Gary Moran put in a fine run to bring his Suzuki home in third place overall.

Special thanks have to go to “Spud” for his hard work to get the track ready for the meeting and to his partner “Carla” for supplying us with hot food and friendly chat on a freezing cold day, the next meeting for the Scottish Twinshock boys is Round 2 at the superb Fife Community racetrack at Cardenden in Fife on Sunday 20^th April.

So we hope to see you all there for yet more great racing, and even more Scottish Twinshock adventures.

Chris (Monty)

Results

Over 40,s

1 R Smith

2 J Mitchell

3 C Sangster

4 G Whyte

5 R Caldwell

6 A Henderson

Pre77,s

1 D McAulay

2 G McLure

3 T Anderson

4 T Dickie

5 S Clark

6 S Grieg

Twinshock 250,s

1 I Shedden

2 M VanDerMerWe

3 J Colligan

4 L Wilson

5 E Scrivener

6 A Joiner

Evolution Class

1 D Pullar

2 J Howard

3 B Bruce

4 S Thomson

5 M Kenny

6 S Whyte

Fourstroke Class

1 J McLean

2 K Baird

3 A Malloch

4 I Clark

5 J Fullarton

Over 50,s Class

1 S Cruikshank

2 M Collier

3 J McKell

4 D Donald

5 -

6 A Richards

Monoshock A Class

1 C Stevenson

2 K Blackwood

3 J Martin

4 S Docherty

5 A McLeod

6 A Joiner

Monoshock B Class

1 J McNeil

2 G Maxwell

3 G Moran

4 R Bryce

5 No 713

6 L Bruce

Twinshock 500

1 P Chiappa

2 J Richards

3 I Robertson

4 B Allardyce

5 A Aitken

6 S Baird