MOTOCROSS: Richard Bird and Glenn McCormick go well at Claudy

It was a first time the championship had run at the venue and the reaction from the competitors was positive despite some initial problems with the timing that saw the North of Ireland Motor Club having to scrap the opening race results, instead taking the overall placing’s from the second and third races.

In the MX1 class, championship leader Lisburn’s Richard Bird took his Five-Motorsport Watt KTM to the overall victory ahead of Robert Hamilton on the Risk

Racing Honda and Watt Kawasaki rider John Meara. He said after his win. “I got a good start in race two with John (Meara) second but when he crashed I just pulled away to win comfortably.

“It was different in race two as I made a bad start and had to work hard to get past John in second place.

“With all the dust I couldn’t see the bumps and had to be careful but when I got past Robert (Hamilton) for the lead I pulled a few seconds and tried not to make any mistakes to the flag.

“It was great to race at a new track and it certainly has great potential to be one of the best in the UK”

The MX2 class always produces some of the closest racing of the day and Saturday was no exception. Jason Meara and Glenn McCormick set the pace in qualifying and in the two races that counted, were at the head of the field yet again.

Meara won the second race after McCormick wrecked the clutch on his Watt KTM.

In the third race

McCormick had to fight back from a bad start to claim the win three corners from home with Meara less than half a second behind. It was a delighted McCormick who said: “That was a great day and I felt that everything was back to normal again.

“I had just taken the lead from Jason (Meara) on lap two when a broken bolt in the clutch casing allowed the oil to leak out.

“When I reached the next corner I had no clutch and stalled the bike.

“I lost a lot of places but at least I fought back to second.

“The final race for me was a great race.

“I made a bad start and was at least seven seconds behind second place on the opening lap.

“When I took second I began to close down Jason and on the run up the hill into the third last corner on the final lap I made my move for the lead. It was some move,” he added.

Jason Meara was happy with his day’s work saying.

“Great day bringing home a 1-2.

“Glad that one’s over though as I had thoughts running through my head all day as it was almost a year to the day that I broke my back at the same track”.

Frazer Young was the overall winner in the MX1 semi-experts while Jack Daly was the semi-expert MX2 winner. In the clubmans MX1 it was Jordan Wade while young Jordan Allingham claimed the MX2.