CLASSICRACERPRE-TTCLASSIC
72 ClassicRacer
“Fandabidozi!” exclaimedadelighted
DominicHerbertsonafter finishingthird.
“It’sgreat to get on the podiumand beat
theold man.”But then he heard thatfather
Markdidn’tactuallystart so had to ‘simply’
settle forthe third placeonthe second
Davies Motorsport Honda, twoseconds
behind Ferguson.
BarryDavidson wasfourth, Alec Whitwell
fifth and StevenElliott sixthin aleaderboard
dominatedbyHondas –otherthan the
topspot.Swallow’snew-found gloryasthe single-
mostsuccessfulriderin thePre-TTClassic
wasshort-livedasMikeHoselevelled with
himfor thesecond timeinone dayinthe
very next race.
The350ccJunior wasled awaybyAlan
Oversbyonthe Davies Motorsport Honda
and less than one second coveredthe top
three of Oversby,Hose andDavidson at the
endofthe opening lap. Hosebraked late
to tryand getpastOversby on one of the
tightright-hand turns,and wasverynearlyovertaken by Davidson on theinside.
Hose eventually went through and had
grabbed an advantage of 0.8 of asecond at
one-third distanceon IanGarbutt’sRipley
Land K4, with Davidsonasimilar margin
down in third.
At half-distancethelead wasupto1.5s.
Hosewasincontrol and he increasedhis
advantage by twoseconds per lap forthe
remainder of the racetowin by asafemargin
of 9.971 seconds fromOversby.Davidson
wasanother 4.6sdown, followedbySteve
Ferguson, HefynOwen and Steve Elliottat
steadilyincreasingdistances.
This put Hosebackonequal termswith
SSSwwwaaallllllooowwwooonnn 111666 wwwiiinnnsss.“YYYooouuuhhhaaadddtttooobbbeeerrreeeaaallllllyyy
careful as the whitelinesare slippery again,”
he revealed. “Itwas acase of picking the
driest line possible.”
Oversby washappytosimply get afinish,
whileDavidson wassatisfied with his third
podiumof the day. Thetop-eight were all
Honda-mounted.YOUHADTOBEREALLYCAREFUL
ASTHEWHITELINESARESLIPPERY
AGAIN.IT WASACASEOFPICKING
THEDRIESTLINEPOSSIBLE
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