Race Reports
Glenochil Race Report Round 8 2018
Scottish Twinshock Round 8
Muirside farm, Glenochil
Sunday 16th September 2018
Report by Jim Grieve
Hello Everyone, this is jim Grieve here and this is my very first race report, so lets
hope it finds many rave reviews,
We started off the day at the beautiful setting of the Glenochil race track,
this field was last used in 2014, with the superb backdrop off the glenochil hills, making
this a stunning venue for our penultinate race and as it would turn out, some superb and
very close racing.
As the riders started to arrive there was a little difficulty getting into the field,
due to the previous nights heavy rain (this may have kept a few fair weather riders at bay,
(their loss), but everyone was ably assisted by "Vandy" (Michael van der Merwe) on the tractor,
and ready to go after his first five minute tractor lesson by chief tractor instructor
Joe "the gaffer" - oops (x gaffer) Mclean.
So Onto todays fantastic race track (built by only three club members, the day before)
and some very close racing on the first of our last two stubble field races.
For group one of our races we had Pre-77, 4-stroke, 125's, youth and novice classes racing
together.
First up were the very fast 125's with William Penrice convicingly taking the overall honours
with three wins from three starts, although craig Smitch was in there to mix things up as well
but as he is a twinshock formatted rider then no points for him. Flying in second place was
Ewan Campbell again with three well earned second places. Third overall in the 125's was taken
by "wee" Kev (Kevin Rosie), starting to enjoy his 125 more and more, chased very ably by Jonathan
Young.
In the four stroke class, we had a mixture of fortunes with San Sibbald and Andy Malloch having some
very bad luck and sailing through to pick up the pieces was Kev "freeflow" Maguire, also
taking the overall on the big KTM (after some dubity about the front forks elegibility)
Race two and race three being won by Big Andy Malloch, but not enough to get a placing this time
with Sam Sibbald taking second overall and Mr consistancy, club chairman Ricky Caldwell taking third.
For the Pre-77 class we had Callum Wilson zooming around on the big yammy and with two first places
and a second place,taking the first overall. For second overall we had Oor Joe Mclean, also
taking a race win in race three and the championship to boot. Taking third in this class was John Fullerton
with some great races with John "Hoppy" Hopton and these two riders were 0nly 700 hundreths of a second apart in the
second race, i must say i enjoyed watching that one very much.
The youth class is becoming a great claas to watch with some very determined youngsters and a whole gaggle
of riders from the Kingdom off road motrcyclying club (KORMC), participating and making life very hard for the
established twinshock youth riders.
Taking the overall and with some great riding was Harrison Grosset, chased hard by Kyle McClure who has now won
the youth championship and as he says " on the same weekend as Jeffrey Herlings", well done Kyle.
Good racing for the third spot between two KORMC riders Connor Paton and Kacper Gawlik, with Kacper taking third
overall after bike problems for Connor in the initial race.
A mention must go to our one and only lady racing today, "Speedy" - Sara Joiner who won the Clubman non-chamionship
class and has improved a great deal since this reporter had first started watching her over 5 years ago, hopefully
we can get more women interested in racing and indeed more clubmen racing in general. This is a great stepping stone
to one of our other classes.
Moving onto group 2 - The twinshock 250, over 50's and open twinshock championship. There were some great results in
these classes with Brian Alexander taking two first places and then opting not to ride in race three, and ultimately
losing a possible championship overall, what happened there Brian, enquiring minds would like to know?, lol
Anyway existing champion and still overall twinshock champion, the legend that is Paul Chiappa, took the 1st position chased by Mark Kenny
returning to fitness after a long lay off, third overall was still taken by the very fast Brian Alexander. This position
even surprised him at the trophy presentation, because of his no show in the third race.
The over 50's class was a John Crawford benefit race with John taking three out of three and equally as fast in second was
John Lamont with three second places and yours truly, last years club champion,Jim Grieve bringing up the rear with three
thirds for third overall.
The twinshock 250 class was headed by the super fast Calum Kilgour on his 250 yamaha with three wins from three races
and taking the 2018 twinshock under 300cc championship.
Alex Joiner chased him home in all three races for second overall and a well deserved third for David Stanford, pushing his
Yamaha to the max.
Group 3 class of races were some of the most interesting to watch with Evolution class and two stroke class bikes racing.
The evolution class riders were indeed flying and no one more than fresh from Farleigh - Paul "Jonty" Johnstone, who took
three wins from three,with some inspired riding, also setting a great pace was Tom grant who took three seconds for second overall on the day and still
leading the championship. It is all to play for though, and the Glenfarg race will be one to watch, be there for this battle.
Third overall was taken by Morton Hannah with three very good rides, pushing the big bike to the max, and with Barry smiddy Smith
moving into third in the overall championship with 4th on the day. All to play for the first three positions and the racing at Glenfarg
is sure to be intense.
The two stroke class was no less exciting than the evo class and we had some very close racing indeed, with superb rides from
Gregor Campbell,Bryan Colligan,Andrew White, David Simmonds, Peter o'Neil, and up and coming youth riders Jordan Mcdonald and Sam Ness.
The overall was taken on the day by Gregor Campbell with two first places and a second. Brian colligan was looking in fine form on his yamaha and
took one race win and second overall with some very sharp rides. Equally fast was Andrew White and with a second and two thirds took the final
podium position.
Group 4 - Monoshock class and day members. There were some epic battles today by new monoshock 2018 club champion Greg Maxwell
and 2017 club champion Allan Shields. The first race was a real ding dong between the two riders and eventually Gregor came out on top and indeed
he was able to win all three races, with Allan taking three seconds for the runner up trophy and Shaun Robertson bringing home the wee 250 four stroke
KTM to a well deserved third overall, and only missing out on a brace of thirds by the tenacious riding of Karl Livingstone in the first race.
Well there we have it folks, my first race report, if you missed Gleochil then you missed a great days racing, with a superb track and the
weather gods were kind to us as well
Hope to see everyone at the finale, in Glenfarg on the 7th of October for what is likely to be some even closer races.