Alex Latest Championship Race

Saturday January the 12th and normal serves resumes for the Gault family after the winter break with dad packing the van for Round 3 of the Q8 Eastern Counties Minimoto Winter Championship. Sunday, and the place to be is F1 Karting, Wakefield. With Alex missing the first two rounds, through a date clash and then a very bad cold, it would be impossible for him to win the championship, but he did however have his target, in the form of fellow ZPF team mate & current leader of the championship Alex Heaton. This round was to see the first outing of his new SAM DORNAN MOTORS/ZPF production bike.

Arriving at the track to join the 60 or so riders who had come to this hotly contested championship. Ryan, Alex's 8 year old younger brother decided to go back into retirement, Thinking that it would be better fun to chase girls round the paddock, than race his minibike on a damp and slippery track (and I thought clever lad, and had to agree!) this would leave Dad free to concentrate on Alex who would be contesting the Juniors and production juniors.

The Junior class is for children from the age of 6yrs to 12yrs using 4.2hp minibikes.

Race 1

With chief marshal "Daz Eaton" having the Kids under starters orders it was plain to see how keen they were, every one of them with their eye on the winners rostrum, and every one creeping forward as the flag fell. round the first corner and into the lead went Matt Bengston, Jamie king & Rob Seppman, Alex Heaton and Alex G pushing hard CLOSE behind. as the race progressed it was Alex H & Alex G who took the lead with Arron Easter pushing Matt hard for 3rd.

Race 2

After two laps the pack had settled down and once again it was the two Alex's with Matt in 3rd behind them a great battle for 4th was developing between Dan Burdett, Karl Taylor,Arron Easter & Scott Bruce. Karl binned it on lap 5 leaving 4th to Dan.

Race 3

The two boys got the jump on every one in this race, and WIZed into the lead, with the two pushing each other, soon had a comfortable gap from the rest of the pack. Karl Taylor wasn't going to make the same mistake twice no matter how CLOSE Arron got to him he was not getting past.

Race 4

 What a race! the weather had changed, the wind had dropped causing the track to become damp and very slippery, The result in this race was more to do with luck than skill, almost all except the very careful crashing out, at one time or another. the only ones I didn't see slipping were Jade Spencer and James Goodyear, at the end of the carnage 1st Alex H, 2nd Alex G, 3rd Karl. and as they returned to the pits Alex said "O G Karl what a MAGnificent race".

Race 5

Here Karl Taylor was on a mission with Dan Burdett pushing ever harder, Alex H took the lead on lap 3. then Alex G pushing to hard lost it at the hairpin and threw the drive chain, track side repairs were made with the help of his support crew and he rejoined the race but 3 laps down Matt Bengston came to grief when he clipped a back marker on lap 7 and was unable to continue. Dashing a almost certain podium finish.

Final results for the juniors 1st Alex Heaton  type of bike ZPF , 2nd Alex Gault type of bike ZPF, 3rd Dan Burdett type of bike DM

Junior production this class that uses around 8hp engines in mini or midi sized bikes.

At the moment I don't do a detailed report on this class as Alex is only playing in it at the moment, and we will have to see how this years rules will make it possible for him to race in this class, but some great racing between Alex G, Alex H, Jay Glin and what was promised from Jack Cooper was cut short after a bad get of on the first lap of the first race resulted in Jack with a suspected broken wrist. The racing went on and at the end it was Alex H, Alex G 2nd, with Jay Glin in 3rd.

For the life of me I couldn't get a mention for his other sponsor then it came to me and I remembered at the end of the meeting every RIDERNEWs who was the best and man of the meeting went to new comer Dam Burnett.