BMC Racing: EMRA Rd1 - Another lap record...

So, here we go again...the long awaited new season is finally upon us. And it all started with the usual March pilgrimage to Mallory Park with EMRA. The weather was sunny, but that was slightly misleading as there was a real chill in the air. Winter is still here and conditions were rather testing. Mike wasn't riding so it was down to myself, Simon Edmondson and, of course, Leon to fly the BMC Racing flag. Simon was on his smart new RVF that he'd bought from Freddy Dunn, and Leon was on his new R6 in the Buildbase Trophy. But, to make things interesting, Leon was also out to play with the 400s on his old ZXR machine - which Mike had been busy preparing for him all week back at BMC Racing HQ.

Qualifying went well. The 400s were out with the Formula 600s so it was a bit busy out on track. This, however, didn't stop Leon from putting in some blistering lap times and sticking his ZXR on pole. Simon also got immediately stuck in and also stuck himself on the front row for race one. I took it a little more gently and could only manage grid number fifteen. In the Buildbase Mallory Trophy Leon was again putting in some quality lap times and found himself ninth on the grid with a lap time of 55.781. In fact, ten riders were all in the 55's so that tells you how close the grid positions were.

And so to the racing, starting with the Formula 400s. There were rumours that we were running with the 600s. This wasn't the case, however, there did seem to be two separate classes though...the 'Leon Jeacock Class' and the 'Rest of Us Class'. This isn't mean't to show a lack of respect to the other riders...indeed the grid contained many quality riders. But it's more to show how Leon really dominated both races from start to finish. Race one saw Leon leap straight out of the blocks and leave the rest of the chasing pack in his wake. A series of incredibly quick laps followed and saw Leon take a very comfortable victory, and lapped half of the field in the process. Simon rode a blinder too. A good start saw him up to fifth on lap one, he then got stuck in and claimed a fantastic third place finish to open up his campaign. Terrific stuff. An accident on lap one in front of me made me slow down and let most of the pack past me. This was annoying as I'd got off the line quite well. I did get my head back in to it though and managed to fight my way up to tenth, so I was happy to start the season with a championship point.

Race two was very similar to race one, in fact. Leon again got an amazing start and was already way ahead by the end of lap one. He then, yet again, put in some blistering lap times to take the win by an incredible twenty three seconds. And in the process smashing his own lap record by about half a second with a time of 56.339! Well done Leon, I don't know how you do it sometimes...and on a bike that was in bits only a week earlier! So big congrats to Mike too for preparing the ZXR so well. Simon didn't have the best of starts, I remember seeing him about four bikes ahead of me. But again he got stuck right in and fought his way to another podium finish in third place. Well done Simon, you rode well. I had a good start and was briefly up to ninth, then spent most of the race in tenth until towards the end when I lost my way a little. But I was happy with my twelfth place finish, it feels good to be riding again after the long winter break.

The Buildbase Trophy was a highly competitive event indeed. Mark Littler was there, as usual, along with the likes of Luke Stapleford, James Hillier and Lee Jackson who were all there to fight their cause. But this time it was to be a fifteen lap single race event, rather than the short sprint qualifier and ten lap main event like last season. Leon got away well but soon found himself just outside the top ten for a while, but he found his rhythm and started picking off the riders ahead. He managed to fight his way up to an incredible eighth place at the finish, and only a fraction of a second behind Michael Niblett in seventh. And all this on his Superstock 600 R6! In fact, his fastest lap time of 54.523 was the fifth fastest of the field...heroic stuff indeed!

So there you have it, a highly enjoyable, very successful start to the new season. I now can't wait to get down to Brands Hatch in a couple of weeks to do it all again...

Video footage to follow soon...