Hants & Dorset Youth MotoX Club

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STICKLAND STONES

AFTER the notional slottery of Allington Lane the Hants and Dorset season was back on terra a lot more firmer at Winterbourne Stickland for its second meeting of the 2006 season.

While the stony nature of the ground might not have changed, the contours of the former flat and flinty course certainly had with some judicious use of an excavator to sculpt some juicy jumps at strategic intervals.

The boom in boomin’ four strokes continued apace with two-thirds of the expert field, a large number of the novices and several seniors now using twice as many cubes as before while the screaming strokers faced an uphill struggle, literally, from the start.

Jon Courage motored to another thumping success in the Experts with a clear cut victory ahead of fellow 4T types Paul Hussey and Josh House with former class champion David Gane piloting his trusty two-stroke Honda to fourth overall.

Tony Whitehead and Allan Lock on strokers strove to split up the foursome of fourstroke Hondas led by Dave King at the top of the Novice group and it could have been a fearsome fivesome had not Mark Goddard crashed out in the last race to leave Martin Elliott to notch his debut race win and make early claim to the season’s most improved rider.

He may have moved up a group since his last H & D appearance but there was no mistaking the bustling, berm-bashing style of Tony Cook as he and hig bing banger muscled their way past more lightweight opposition, but neither he nor anyone else in the Seniors could match the pace of runaway Ryan Gower.

In the ultra-competitive Inter 100 group canny Carl Miles was the dark horse that came up on the rails to claim the overall at the expense of several shooting stars whose ante post form might have made them more favoured for success.

Darren Wingar repeated his success of a fortnight earlier in the Inter 85 category with Ross Churchill, Lewis Cave and Louis Schmidt all moving up the order to mount a challenge to his early supremacy.

Bethany Farmer struck a blow for girl power in the juniors with a feisty runner up spot behind Oliver Jones.

On the Auto big wheel front same three names were in the frame but in a different order this time with Scott Newham besting the Curtis clan while Jamie Carpenter saw off Joshua Bunter to nail the small wheel section.

RESULTS - Winterborne Stickland 19th March 2006

Expert Plus
1) 95 Jon Courage 2) 2 Paul Hussey 3) 45 Josh House 4) 33 David Gane 5) 15 Chris Joe Kimpton   6) 24 Rich Pile

Novice
1) 64 Dave King 2) 58 Tony Whitehead 3) 65 Allan Lock 4) 1 5) 9 Martin Elliot 6) 37 Alan Bungay

Senior
1) 62 Ryan Gower 2) 4 Tony Cook 3) 25 Alex Hussey 4) 11 Luke Reynolds   5) 77 Tom White 6) 57 Chris Cave

Inter 100
1) 63 Carl Miles 2) 5 Ben Weeden 3) 46 Warren Abrahams 4) 69 Matt Ogden 5) 88 Stephen Bain 6)

Inter 85
1) 58 Darren Wingar 2) 40 Ross Churchill 3) 2 Lewis Cave 4) 8 Louis Schmidt 5) 73 Jack Whatley 6) 6 Stuart White

Junior
1) 15 Oliver Jones 2) 6 Bethany Farmer 3) 40 Jack Alderton 4) 46 Rowan Miller 5) 22 Jaylee Arnold    6) 43 Jed Wallis

Auto Big Wheel
1) 16 Scott Newham 2) 8 Nathan Curtis   3) 7 Oliver Curtis

Auto Small Wheel
1) 22 Jamie Carpenter 2) 59 Joshua Bunter 3) 67 Harry Pritchard 4) 10 Benjamin Roles 5) 4 Joseph House 6) 27 Lance Ford

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MATCHAMS MUSINGS

TRUE grit was needed by riders at the Hants & Dorset YMC meeting at Matchams on April 2 – and they had it by the bucketload.

A wet week beforehand and overnight rain had turned the sand and stones into an unappetising muesli of mush that sapped every ounce of energy from bikes and riders.

Wisely the three auto entries were given a sabbatical but everyone else from junior jockeys to
superannuated novices just had to grit and grind their teeth and get on with it.

Matchams specialist Pete Gray emerged from hibernation and survived a second race crash to top the novice standings from fellow four-stroke exponent Adrian Bartlett who also had his ups and downs while holeshotting Tom Reeve bagged the other race win – once he managed to excavate the sand and gravel from his Kawasaki kick starter.

Jonathan Courage ground out another overall win in the experts ahead of a remodelled pack led by Tony Tomasso and Gareth Blakemore newly upgraded from senior ranks churned through the ungraded grains to make the grade among the big boys.

Alex Hussey found himself cast in the seniors Cinderella role again with Arran Carmichael taking the
limelight with some worthy performances from the supporting cast putting some new names among the credits.

The sticky conditions only added to the strength of competition among the top tips of the Inter 100s group with Carl Miles taking the verdict from Ben Weeden and Stephen Bain making his presence felt with a fighting third place.

Discounting the flock of migrant visitors, Lee Wren ruled the roost in the Inter 85 class ahead of Lewis Cave with sterling efforts from the likes of Chris Stuttle, Stuart White and Jack Whatley relegating the season’s erstwhile supremo to sixth spot.

Just finishing was a triumph in itself for many of the juniors battling with wheel-deep ruts in the
shifting sands but Oscar Schmidt toughed it out to post his best result behind the regular front runners
Olly Jones and Jack Howe.

RESULTS - Matchams 2nd April 2006

Expert Plus
1) 2) 8 Tony Tomasso 3) 20 Scott Wallis 4) 3 Lee Cummings 5) 27 Gareth Blakemore   6) 45 Josh House

Novice
1) 22 Pete Gray 2) 76 Adrian Bartlett 3) 2 Tom Reeve 4) 65 Allan Lock 5) 50 Stephen Rolls 6) 37 Alan Bungay

Senior
1) 80 Arran Carmichael 2) 25 Alex Hussey 3) 11 Luke Reynolds 4) 88 Craig Durston 5) 1 Dean Pennington 6) 45 Lee O'Shea

Inter 100
1) 63 Carl Miles 2) 5 Ben Weeden   3) 88 Stephen Bain 4) 46 Warren Abrahams 5) 22 Jordan Murphy 6) 69 Matt Ogden

Inter 85
1) 50 Lee Wren 2) 43 Chris Stuttle 3) 2 Lewis Cave 4) 6 Stuart White   5) 73 Jack Whatley 6) 58 Darren Wingar

Junior
1) 15 Oliver Jones 2) 59 Jack Howe 3) 74 Oscar Schmidt 4) 2 Alice Monks 5) 46 Rowan Miller   6) 76 Kieron Whitlock

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WORGRET WEEKEND

HANTS & Dorset YMC broke new ground – or rather the course builders did – when a last minute change of venue saw the Easter weekend two-day meeting staged at Worgret near Wareham.

Judicious application of a digger to the virgin field created enough berms and jumps to keep riders and spectators interested – and a Saturday afternoon downpour added some last block skittishness to the mix.

The demands of racing two days on the trot also altered the complexion of the regular runners and results in several of the groups.

Former group champion David Gane resurfaced at the head of the Expert Plus pack winning the first two motos and leaving double Sunday race winner Sean Lock to rue his slipping up the previous day.

Veteran Colin Ayles making one of his rare appearances on the track mixed it to good effect among the more youthful novices where overall victor Ashley Green was the only one to take the chequered flag twice – honours going to Ashley Clarke, Martin Elliott and Tony Whitehead in the other encounters.

Arran Carmichael carried on where he left off at Matchams to take a hat trick of wins en route to garnering the Senior laurels from home bird Ryan Gower and the migrating Lloyd Nightingale.

In the Inter 100 group Carl Miles was almost unstoppable with only a prang in the penultimate heat preventing a clean sweep at the expense of the rest of the close-matched field in his wake.

Lewis Cave never finished lower than second in the Inter 85 races and his greater consistency outpointed visitor George Bayliss whose three wins were mixed up with a third and fifth as Ross Churchill and Grant Adlem disputed the bottom step of the podium.

Newcomer Nicky Denton gave Oliver Jones a hard time in the Juniors taking three wins to OJ’s two but blotting his copy book with a lowly seventh in the third leg.

Only the auto pilots were able to completely command their respective groups with Scott Newham unbeaten in the big wheel class ahead of the Curtis kids and Jamie Carpenter equally peerless in the more populous but smaller wheeled category.

RESULTS - Worgret 15&16th April 2006

Expert Plus
1) 33 David Gane 2) 45 Josh House 3) 31 Sean lock 4) 25 Bradley King   5) 2 Paul Hussey   6) 48 Ashley Smith

Novice
1) 11 Ashley Green 2) 9 Martin Elliot 3) 41 Colin Ayles 4) 92 Ashley Clarke 5) 91 Darren Veal 6) 58 Tony Wjitehead

Senior
1) 80 Arran Carmichael 2) 62 Ryan Gower 3) Lloyd Nightingale 4) 10 Lewis Palmer 5) 25 Alex Hussey 6) 57 Chris Cave

Inter 100
1) 63 Carl Miles 2) 5 Ben Weeden   3) 88 Stephen Bain 4) 22 Jordan Murphy 5) 10 Dean Cummings 6) 46 Warren Abrahams

Inter 85
1) 2 Lewis Cave   2) 11                 3) 40 Ross Churchill 4) 60 Grant Adlem   5) 73 Jack Whatley 6) 99 Marc Cunningham

Junior
1) 15 Oliver Jones 2) 101 Nicky Denton 3) 136            4) 6 Bethany Farmer 5) 3 Jack Whetrenr   6) 72 Jack Dudman

Auto Big Wheel
1) 16 Scott Newham

Auto Small Wheel
1) 22 Jamie Carpenter 2) 59 Joshua Bunter 3) 67 Harry Pritchard 4) 27 Lance Ford 5) 46 Sean Dimmick 6) 4 Joseph House

Auto Championship Round 3 Results (ie the Saturday Races)

Auto Big Wheel
1) 16 Scott Newham 2) 7 Oliver Curtis 3) 8 Nathan Curtis

Auto Small Wheel
1) 22 Jamie Carpenter 2) 59 Joshua Bunter 3) 67 Harry Pritchard 4) 27 Lance Ford 5) 4 Joseph House 6) 46 Sean Dimmick

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BISHOPSTONE TRIPLE

THERE was many a slip twixt cusp and the lip when pre-race watering caught out the unwary, especially at the summit of the uphill double, when Hants and Dorset YMC made its first visit of the year to the sculpted limestone of Bishopstone.

But the artificial application of wetness after the failure of the promised natural precipitation paid dividends by laying the dust, at least for most of the time.

And just as well that the lap scorers view was not impeded by wet or dry as several groups contrived to throw up some complicated results to sort out.

There was a triple tie for top place in the Inter 100s where once again Carl Miles managed to come out on top courtesy of his first race win while Ben Weeden who took in the flag in the both other encounters was relegated to third behind Jordan Murphy.

Seniors too resulted in equilibrium between double race winner and reigning class champ Arran Carmichael and the more consistent, if less flamboyant, Ryan Gower with the tie-break going in favour of the latter.

Lee Wren was ruling the Inter 85 roost after winning the first two heats but was knocked off his perch with a DNF in the third leg letting Louis Schmidt take flag and the overall laurels and leave Lewis Cave in the shade.

By contrast there was no doubting the outcome in the Junior ranks where Harry Sherman outgunned Oliver Jones each time out with the leading pair holding the whip hand over the three Jacks who monopolised the next three placings.

Scott Newham was assured of being outstanding in his field as he ploughed a solitary big wheel auto furrow among the season’s largest smattering of tiniest tearaways headed by Jamie Carpenter, despite dropping the second leg to overall runner up Joshua Bunter.

While Ashley Smith kept his thumping KTM at the front of the Experts the destiny of the minor medals required more head scratching and number-crunching by the scorers as the following pack was seriously shuffled in his wake with Paul Hussey’s last race second enough to edge Danny Richards on to the third rung of the podium.

In the novice category Tony Whitehead was the 2-stroke filling sandwiched between the 4-stroke Yams of the Gray brothers with Pete cutting the mustard best to finish butter side up each time.

RESULTS - Bishopstone 30th April 2006

Expert Plus
1) 48 Ashley Smith 2) 2 Paul Hussey 3) 35 Danny Richards 4) 31 Sean lock   5)   45 Josh House 6) 33 David Gane

Novice
1) 22 Pete Gray 2) 58 Tony Whitehead 3) 72 Kevin Gray 4) 11 Ashley Green 5) 9 Martin Elliot 6) 2 Tom Reeve

Senior
1) 62 Ryan Gower   2) 80 Arran Carmichael 3) 25 Alex Hussey 4) 88 Craig Durston 5) 2 Joshua Moores   6) 21 Justin Banyard

Inter 100
1) 63 Carl Miles 2) 22 Jordan Murphy 3) 5 Ben Weeden 4) 88 Stephen Bain 5) 69 Matt Ogden 6) 10 Dean Cummings

Inter 85
1) 8 Louis Schmidt   2) 2 Lewis Cave   3) 60 Grant Adlem 4) 58 Darren Wingar   5) 43 Chris Stuttle 6) 99 Marc Cunningham

Junior
1) 31 Harry Sherman 2) 15 Oliver Jones 3) 59 Jack Howe   4) 40 Jack Alderton 5) 3 Jack Whetren   6) 8 Billy Graham

Auto Big Wheel
1) 16 Scott Newham

Auto Small Wheel
1) 22 Jamie Carpenter 2) 59 Joshua Bunter 3) 46 Sean Dimmick 4) 4 Joseph House 5) 10 Bejamin Roles 6) 67 Harry Pritchard

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HENSTRIDGE HIGHLIGHTS

ACTIONS on and off the track and the vagaries of the scoring system created some fantastical if not farcical results when the Hants and Dorset bandwagon alighted alongside the Henstridge airfield on May 14.
Once upon a time Phil Lewis was a wizard among the Experts and while he again cast his spell to win all three races as a visitor he was invisible from the final table.
That would have left Jon Courage with two seconds to capture the honours, but he failed to finish so it was left to Lee Cummings, whose best placing was a last race third to inherit the mantle of overall winner.
There was a fairy tale debut for Tony Whitehead winning his first race on a shiny new RMZ250 but despite defecting to the 4T ranks he again ended up as Cinderella among the novices where Martin Elliott, always in the top three, was the prince who finished happiest ever after.
Lewis Palmer drew first blood in the Senior trilogy but could not vanquish the dragon of Aaron Carmichael who rose from the comparative ashes of a first race race sixth to claw his way to the top of the heap.
Ben Weeden was away to win all three Inter 100 races with apparent fair ease leaving Jordan Murphy to best the rest in a closely-contested battle for the next five places.
Slipping to an unaccustomed eighth in the final encounter failed to cost double race winner Lewis Cave the overall spoils but allowed Ross Churchill to take the flag and hoist himself to third in the overall standings behind the more consistent Bradley Margetts making his first foray onto the podium this year.
While Oliver Jones made each junior race his own the second places were shared evenly among his followers with Harry Sherman the joker splitting a handful of Jacks in the pack.
Absent a fortnight earlier, the Curtis boys came out to play follow my leader with Scott Newham in the big wheel auto section but Josh Bunter managed to nail Jamie Carpenter for the small wheel prize after they shared a see-saw sequence of firsts and seconds.

THE HANTS & DORSET YMC squadron was scrambled at the Henstridge airfield circuit for a weekend of high-flying aerial action at the club’s summer two-day meeting on July 22/23.

Groundcrew with dozers and bowsers were on standby to counter the threat of dust but were not needed as sunshine and showers helped keep track and field in fine fettle throughout both days.

Sharing his name with a famous seaplane, Sam Sunderland enjoyed some symmetrical formation flying with the relaunched Aaron Carmichael at the head of the Senior ranks in front of flyin’ Ryan Gower and the sibling revivalry of Ogden brothers Josh and Matt.

A spectacular first race prang for novice ‘red arrow’ Martin Elliott put him out of action from the start leaving the group’s only double race winner Pete Barnes to take the overall from Barry Wright and the consistent Chris Reynolds.

One-eleven pilot George Bayliss landed four wins and the aggregate honours among the Inter 85s where the fluctuating form of first heat winner Ross Churchill allowed ever-present Chris Cave to snatch the overall runner up slot.

A hat trick of victories for Ben Weeden secured him the Inter 100 prize despite the close attentions of his wing man Jordan Murphy who was never out of the top three and shot down his leader second time out.

Jack Howe achieved the rare feat of beating Oliver Jones to the tape, but only once, and kept him firmly in his sights for the other four races in the junior programme where Jack Alderton was a constant third while the others swapped positions in the top trio’s trail.

An air of inevitability among the big wheeled autopilots was relieved by Nathan and Oliver Curtis changing places behind the Scott Newham who kept his usual firm grip of the captain’s seat.

After see-sawing between second and fourth in the first four outings Jamie Carpenter finally found a higher plane to nail runaway winner Josh Bunter in the final race for the smaller wheeled autos group with Joseph House edging Sean Dimmick off the podium.

Brett Wheeler took first blood in the experts category to dent the five star aspirations of the evergreen Terry House while a last race machine problem for Phil Lewis let the consistent Lee Cummings cash in his hand for third place overall.

THE track may have been flat-ish but the racing was fizzing when the Hants and Dorset YMC caravan journeyed to the outskirts of Sherborne on western extreme of the county on August 6.

A stiff breeze blowing across the arid hillside kept the dust storms at bay enough to ensure a full day’s programme with the compact, twisty nature of course providing some keenly-contested racing in all groups over the bone dry, bone-jarring terrain.