Imola 4 hrs ECS - First & Second

Hugh Brasher and Mike Dickinson won a straight forward 4hrs race at Imola, the third round of the ECS championship held on Sunday 3rd September. Team mates, Peter Linden and Ian Simpson were a superb second. Congratulations to the whole team and thanks to our loyal sponsors. A fine third place went to Henk Van der Mark and Dirk Brand on the fast and reliable Bakker Roadrunner Suzuki. Top job.!










The race was conducted in warm dry conditions with not so much as a pacecar to break the monotony.! Not to say that the race was boring; entertainment was provided aplenty; firstly by the Banfield/Conroy pairing, struggling with a loose oil pipe on their P&M Kawasaki on the warm up, followed by Alf's  guys breaking another superfast Kawasaki engine, then Force and Banfield/Conroy following suit. At least the Neates added a bit of interest with push ins and electrical problems, but the final and saddest failure was SCERTs with a broken crank within the last 30 mins.
It's called endurance racing.

The ECS obsession with the destruction of Europe's whole stock of Kawasaki and Suzuki parts continues apace, with absolutely no word on modernising the regulations for 2018. We think that it's almost too late now to prepare for an EVO750 entry, or anything new for 2018.











This Italian round of the ECS was another of these hotch potch races with bikes from all sorts of more recent classes mingling with the ECS entrants and distorting the results. For instance an Italian bike raced with two young guns, one a factory test rider (not allowed by ECS regs) on a recent Moto Guzzi - (also not allowed by the ECS regs), inevitable finishing ahead of all the ECS entries. Other recent bike, non-classified teams were scattered through the results.

Whilst the ECS stick to the current out of date formula, all non-Belgian races will be like this; with separate organisers forging ahead with new categories, leaving the ECS in antique land, even more depleted.

Steve Bateman helped prepare the rostrum bikes. 

Following the race the team headed for the Ferrari museums at Modena and Maranello. Monday was spent transfixed by the blend of engineering with art and the life story and vision of Enzo Ferrari.

Ferrari Museum Modena

Last weekend was a great chance to dip our toes into the ICGP water (literally). The Rijeka round of the series gave Peter Linden a chance to try out Andy Abram's Spondon TZ350. Over 30 laps were covered before Peter succumbed to Flu, but in that time he achieved second fastest time in the damp Sunday practice which followed seventh in his debut dry session. Mike Edwards dominated the weekend with wins in the wet and the dry on the superbly prepared BSR TZ350 of the Beale Roberts Team.

Anyway, enough of that; looking ahead we have a week in the Pyrenees and the Aragon 4hrs to look forward to. This year's Ainsa off road trip will pitch racers against sponsors and a world champ (albeit with a gammy foot|- Linden) against the rest. As always it will be sheer fun.!

Aragon will then follow at the end of October.

See you there.

RB