Dean Wilson kept up his 100% record in the Arenacross ACU British championship on Saturday night, taking the win at round five in Aberdeen on his racing return to Scotland.
Much to the delight of the partisan crowd in the P&J Live arena, Wilson won both his heat races and then the final to sweep the event on his Armor Vision / St.Blazey Honda but once again he didn’t have it his own way. Conrad Mewse (Crendon Tru 7 Honda Racing) was fired up and after running wide in the first corner he came through from fifth to catch Wilson with some incredible whoop speed, something Wilson is more renowned for. However, it was the whoops that were to be Conrad’s downfall after he was forced to change his line due to a lapped rider he got out of control and crashed off the side of the track.
With Wilson and Mewse clearly faster than anyone else the battle for the third-place podium spot was more debatable. Reigning champion Jack Brunell made it two third place finishes on the spin as he rode solid with his confidence clearly coming back after a difficult start to his and Stark Future Racing’s title defence. Matt Bayliss put in his best performance of the tour on his SC Sportshome Husqvarna, being the only person to make a pass on Wilson all night, before Dean quickly returned the favour. With confidence still high from this third-place finish on Friday night in Belfast Apico Factory Racing Honda’s Martin Barr racked up another top five finish.
The youth and amateur classes were yet again equally as good as the pros and things are starting to hot up with one round to go. In the ‘Mini’ 65cc class Cameron Berry put it together to go 1-1 and take the overall and close in a few points on Mason Staddon, with Frank Bishop again rounding up the podium. The gap at the top between Staddon and Berry is now down to 12 points.
In the ‘Supermini’ 85cc class John Slade is still leading the way by 16 points over George Cherry after extending his lead with another overall victory. His 2-1 result was enough to edge out Elvis Totney who took his first race win of the series in the opener but a second place behind John in the evening race meant that John took the win on the tie break rule. Williams ended the event third overall and in the championship with a 4-3 result, pushing Cherry off the podium on another tie break. George was really amped to win in his home country, but too many mistakes cost him, fair to say he left it all out on track though.
The ‘Futures’ class is all set for a final round showdown between championship leader Issac Ash and Harry Lee with now just six points between them after another epic round of racing in Aberdeen. Again, they traded blows on race wins, but Lee managed to back his up with a second place to Issac’s third to get the gap in the championship down. Austin Beasty played his part in the battle, leading plenty of laps but after a couple of mistakes in both races and getting tangled up with Lee, sending them both off track in a spectacular crash cost him a shot at the overall victory.
The amateur class was nothing short of brilliant with action from front to back. It was Sion Talbot who took the chequered flag and his first win of the year, which he was clearly happy about. Adam Wells backed up his two thirds in Belfast to grab second. Raife Broadley rode a stormer coming from the back of the field to fight his way up to the final podium spot and by doing so putting himself into the championship lead by one point over Louis Brookes. Louis had another good race going on leading from the start before crashing on lap six and coming home in fifth. With championships so tight across all the youth and amateur classes, the final round of the Arenacross ACU British championship at Manchester’s AO Arena on Saturday 22nd is definitely going to be ‘edge of the seat’ racing.
As for the pros, can Dean Wilson clean sweep the British championship? Mewse and Co will be doing all they can to make sure he doesn’t. There’s also the addition of the second Arenacross World Tour qualifying round where former champions Thomas Ramatte and Cedric Soubeyras and more international riders will be lining up in the race to Abu Dhabi for the world tour finals. And to top it all off, Manchester will be the 100th night of Arenacross, so expect a real party atmosphere.
