Race Report: Buff Supermono Championship/Nitro Moto450 - Oulton Park, 25th/26th June

ROUND 7

Round 7 of the Buff Supermono Championship at Oulton Park was a scorcher. Friday qualifying and the two Saturday races were held under a withering sun, with the on track action just as hot.

Qualifying

Qualifying saw mark Lawes take up his customary position at the head of the field, setting the benchmark with a 1:50.4 second lap, followed by Ivan Porter, Dave Harnett and Jonathan Good heading up the rest of the supermono field.

Race 1

The race began in dramatic fashion, when James Folkard, on a Moto450 Aprilia, had a start line accident which left him sitting in the middle of the track. The full grid of Supermono, Moto450 and GP125s all amazingly managed to miss the stranded rider and continued to trade paint in the now customary way as if nothing had happened. The race was red flagged after 3 laps when Will Hodgson, making a run up the inside of Mark Lawes through Cascades collided with the Pami BMW and sent both riders somersaulting off track. In unison Dave Harnett had an unrelated accident on the way into cascades and saw his beautiful home built PressFab KTM690 cartwheel itself through the gravel trap. The race was stopped to attend to Mark, who all were relieved to hear had suffered nothing more serious than bruising. But it was enough to put him out of the re-run and race 2.

The shortened re-run saw Ivan Porter take up the charge and after shadowing the 450 Aprilia's of Ben Gautrey and Connor Tagg he made a decisive move on the final lap to secure overall race and supermono victory. It was a well earned victory, with Ivan's fastest race lap of 1:50.7 being just 0.3s slower than the multiple European Champions pole position standard. Perry Goldstein also had his hands full fighting off the attentions of the youngsters, with the 450 Aprilia of Liam Shellcock and 125 Hondas of Tom Carne and Luke Hedger keeping him busy for the whole race. Perry's considerable experience eventually won the day with 4th overall and 2nd supermono. Jon Good nursed his ailing Tigcraft Yamaha home in 3rd with Martyn 'Mr Consistent' Jarvis 4th.

Race 2

As the lights went out the first corner was another frantic affair with Ivan Porter shadowing the Aprilia 450 pairing of Tagg and Gautrey but choosing the safety of a supermono points haul over the risk of securing the overall win. Dave Harnett, after a superhuman effort from his supporters to rebuild his bike following his race 1 tumble (and with just minutes to spare) rewarded their efforts with a fine 2nd place and with Perry Goldstein again surrounded by teenagers (must be a musician thing) a couple of seconds adrift in 3rd and Martyn Jarvis again 4th.

Ivan Porter now has the immense satisfaction of leading the Supermono series on a bike he has built himself; having designed and manufactured most of the engine and the chassis himself. It's close at the top, with just 6 points separating Ivan and Mark Lawes, with Jon Good stalking them in 3rd just 8 points adrift of Mark. Martyn Jarvis - the only rider to have finished every race this season and also on a home designed and built machine, is the only other competitor to score over a century to hold 4th. Not bad for a man who celebrated his own 'half century' at Cadwell Park a few weeks before.

Next round is Brands Hatch over the August Bank Holiday weekend.

Thanks to Steve Burge for contributing this article to the site.