Round 6 of the Hull Thursday Road Club TT series was held on Tuesday night at Gilberdyke. A heavy downpour about an hour before the event left the course very wet, with standing water in many places. Fortunately by time the first rider started much of the standing water had dried up but the course was still very damp especially in the shade of the trees with other places still wet.

There was very little wind and the sun once again came out to give a reasonably warm night which had all the signs of being a very fast night. This, however, did not prove to be the case, with many riders returning times of up to a minute slower than their personal bests, on what is usually a very fast course.

Stephen Guymer took his fourth straight win, although the victory margin this time round was reduced to just under 20 seconds. Graham Morgan made his series debut this year and took second place, beating Neil Cleminshaw to the runners-up spot. Will Thomas was fourth, with Paul Noble and James Bray once again separated by a few seconds.

The top 10 was concluded by Tom Unwin, Neil Dean and Paul Kilvington, with all three of them recording times under 20 minutes.

Dave Millson and Richard Dean took care of organising the event which was done in a very efficient manner, and Andy Cawley took care of time-keeping.

Unfortunately, the event was marred by an crash involving Mark Walker, who slid off on the 90° bend at the end of the first straight. Fortunately, the corner was marshalled by Richard Dean, who was able to look after Mark until an ambulance arrived. Initial concerns that he had broken either his elbow or a shoulder fortunately proved unfounded, and after a visit to Goole hospital in an ambulance he returned home later in the evening with his arm in a sling, with a badly bruised shoulder and cuts and bruises all down his left side.

Big big thanks to Andy Carroll, Raz (who was the next rider to arrive and kindly stopped) and Richard Dean who all did an excellent job of looking after Mark and arranging for the ambulance to attend. It’s quite comforting to know that in the event of an incident like this that things are taken care of very well. It’s also the first time in 15 years that we have had an accident that required an ambulance, so let’s hope we don’t need another for a similar length of time.

Hopefully Mark will be back on his bike within a week or so (once the bruising has settled down). I must admit the corners did seem slippery and on a couple of occasions while racing and once whilst warming up I could feel my back wheel squirming around a little bit and it was necessary to back off considerably round the corners is compared to when the course is dry.

 

The next event is at Etton, on the circuit based on South Dalton.

 

Photos by Andy Carroll available from the HTRC Flickr

 

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2014 TT Series Results of Event #6 – Gilberdyke

 

TT Series 2014 After 6 Events

 

Paul Kilvington
TT Secretary/Club President