Location: Nettlebed, Oxon
Results: E Nat RR Championships 2012
Report by Don Parry, LVRC Chairman, report published at: http://lvrc.org/race_results.asp
For maybe only the 2nd or 3rd time this year decent weather made the wearing of shorts unquestionable which made for a very positive start to this championship. Possibly the best ever field in recent years had assembled for this race run by GS Henley, led by Wayne Thomas who is also a member of the LVRC NEC. This was a superb organisation rightly commented on at the end by Alan Kemp, on behalf of all the riders, from the podium. Thanks to all the large team of helpers.
Seven laps of a rolling course with a finishing hill and 2km drag immediately afterwards provided the spring board for most of the pressure in the race which started on the first lap. Many attacks in the first few laps were brought back by the favourites watching each other like hawks and not wanting to let anything go. Early aggressors included Alan Kemp, Derek George, David Harper, Dave Woods, Tom Wilson with two very strong high speed surges, Don Parry, Ray Robinson and later on inevitably Chris Gunter. Non managed to escape but it did result in a severe thinning down of the leading group by the end of lap 3.
Finally with one lap to go Kemp attacked decisively on the long descent through Stoke Row prior to the climb, quickly followed by Parry. These two were then joined on the drag after the climb by Paul Allen, Tom Wilson, Allan Ramsey to make five away for the last lap although they never managed to gain more than about 400 – 500 meters lead. Wilson commented later they were really “chewing the bars” to get across – but get across they did. Parry said later he thought that for once he had got Alan Kemp on the ropes on the climb but the moved settled down quite quickly with the five working to sustain the lead. Ray Robinson riding strongly the whole race got caught in no man’s land desperately attempting to bridge but to no avail.
On the final descent Ramsey attacked followed by Parry into the last corner. Parry went for a long one, gained a quite a few meters, Ramsey blew, Parry blew in the final fifty meters with Kemp and Wilson and Allen all going past before the line to finish in that order.
Position Rider
1 Alan Kemp
2 Tom Wilson
3 Paul Allen
4 Don Parry
5 Ray Palin
6 Ralph Keeler
7 Dave Woods
8 Alistair Cameron
9 Chris Gunter
10 Ray Robinson
11 David Harper
12 Alan Williams
13 Allan Ramsay
14 Susan Shook
15 Kenneth Corbett
16 Tom Lejeune
17 Gordon Smith
18 Bob Ford
19 Ivor Thomas
20 Lindsay Ruocco
For more LVRC results and information, see: http://lvrc.org/.