Back to Back Victories For Jon Stamper

Jon Stamper of Front Row GB has taken two impressive back-to-back wins at the National 250cc GP Championship to move ahead of his rivals.

At Snetterton, two weeks ago, Jon thought his luck had ran out when in race 1 his Yamaha TZ250 ran out of fuel on the final lap when comfortably in the lead. Race 2 would see no such mistake handing Jon his first outright win of the season .

Last weekend seen the Championship move to Donnington Park, supporting the British Superbike Series. Jon remained at the head of the pack throughout practice and qualifying and was to keep this rhythm intact for the main race, taking a commanding race win, moving ahead in the overall championship.

FRGB

2nd @ Round 1 UK Rally Championship

Stan Watt of Front Row GB took a good second place at the first round of the UK Rally Championship.

Stan was on his usual KTM690R for the fairly relaxed event, known as the Tarenig Rally, organised by the Hafren MCC. It's been two years since the event took place and this year attracted an strong entry of 245 riders.

The event was a new configuration for Stan with a 35 mile lap on fast forestry trails with 3 short special tests on each lap, semi-designed around the more enduro type going, with the fast riders around the 5 minute mark on each test.

The Tarenig Rally was to be a testing ground for continuous development of the KTM690R and its ability to be a competitive long distance rally machine, capable of undertaking such events as extreme as the Dakar Rally. With this in mind, Stan used the whole 35 mile lap as a special test pushing on, during the liaison sections as well as the short special tests. This allowed the KTM690R to open up into the suspicious stability area around 110mph

Every lap allowed the Team to change suspension and at one point tyres, in order to assess the way ahead in these two particular fields of development.

Although threatening, luckily, the weather stayed dry for the duration and after 105 miles, Stan finished a mere 53 seconds behind Craig Bounds and Patsy Quick took the ladies with her first run out on the KTM690R as part of a number of riders from Desert Rose Racing.

A good event and thanks must go out to the Jones family and the Hafren MCC for putting a relaxed and friendly rally.

Thanks to Rob Sartin of Talon Engineering for some last minute parts, Derrick Edmondson for a helping hand even though still injured from the Red Marley Hill Climb plus Ivan and Kane for the hands on help.

The next few weeks should see the finished 690R Rally developed by Edmondson Racing and Front Row GB, so keep an eye out for what could be the Rally bike for majority.

FRGB will be out on the 690R on 23rd May at Reading MCC and 3rd June at the 2nd round of the UK Rally Championship; The Ryedale Rally.

FRGB

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

Jon Stamper Back in Action

Jon Stamper springs back into action on his TZ250 GP machine at Brands Hatch and Pembrey for the first time since he sustained his shoulder injuries in Argentina during the 2009 Dakar Rally.

Jon who still suffers from the shoulder injury he picked up in January, has forced himself back onto his high spec TZ250 GP two stroke with immediate success, finishing 3rd at the international East London circuit, Brands Hatch and more recently in South Wales at Pembrey Race Circuit where he took two convincing 2nd places over the two day meeting.

Although his passion for road racing would be classed as his first love, he is slowly getting strong enough to get back on a dirt bike and has spent some time on developing the new KTM690 Enduro R into what could possibly be a good competitive rally bike and some local training on his KTM250 EXC Six Days.

Jon will be competing at the next round of road racing in two weeks at Snetterton Race Circuit, which should suit his factory equipped machine as it is renowned as being one of the fastest in top end speed throughout the UK.