Eventful Race at Somerley Park

Stan Watt from Front Row GB started a few weeks of consecutive racing with the Southern Counties Enduro Championship 3hr Hare and Hounds event at Somerley Park, on the Dorset Hampshire border.

If the overnight weather had held then Stan would have competed on the KTM690R, but instead opted for the lighter, more nimble and at this event, more competitive KTM250 EXC Six Days.

With a poor start of 2nd from last (only ahead of Mark Cornick), Stan was quickly pushed back to last position by Mark near the start of the first lap in the 20+ strong Championship class. Quickly getting into his stride, Stan started making his way through the field re-passing Mark Cornick and a number of other handy Championship riders including Danny Hall before settling into a fast and productive rythum.

With a new screen information system at the transponder location, allowing riders to see exactly where they are positioned, was extremely helpful to Stan as he could see he was closing on the leading riders. By lap 6 he was up to 6th and by the end of lap 7 had moved into 4th position. Lap 8 was when it all went wrong, when Stan changed over onto reserve with plenty to finish the lap, only to find the bike ran out of fuel about 800m from the re-fuel arena.

After pushing the bike back to the pits and starting to refuel, it was then realised the carburetor had been levered out of the rubber boot and fuel was running out of the carb as quick as it could be fillled. With the assistance of Ben Saville, it still took over 5 minutes to put things right and get the bike started and underway, putting Stan back to 13th position. With over 10 minutes lost altogether and needing yet another fuel stop, Stan tried to push hard on the last few laps of a physically demanding course but only managed to crawl his way back to 9th by the last lap and couldn't improve any further.

A big thanks to Gary Warr of SCEC for such an excellent event and course plus to Ben Saville for pushing me and the KTM until he was almost sick in order to fire it back into life and sorting the mechanical issues that could have easily have made for a DNF.

If you have nothing to do this weekend and want some different motorcycle racing, Stan will be competing at the Tarrenig Rally in Wales on board his KTM690 Enduro R, running number 2.

Regards

FRGB