The opening round of the IHRO series took place at the sun kissed Jules Tachney road circuit at Mettet in Belgium, yes you did read that correctly, SUN KISSED !!. In contrast to previous years when we have been subjected to fog, hail and torrential thunderstorms, the G.old trophy meeting in 2008 was a real scorcher, as was the racing.

Continuing with his dominating form from 2007, Lea Gourlay won all 4 of the IHRO races he entered on Roger Winfield’s beautifully prepared machines, on the Sunday he had to battle for the lead with Phill Sharp on his Aermacchi in the 350 class and with Ives Glauser in the 500′s on his Seeley G50 but still came away victorious.

Mettet was a meeting of comebacks, with Bart Crauwels returning to racing after his horrific Manx GP crash in 2006. Having only just been granted his licence back on the Friday, he soon showed that although out of practice, he had lost none of his aggression and in Saturday’s race he was a fantastic second to Gourlay despite being given a 10 second penalty for jumping his assisted push start from the back of the grid, he finished ahead of Glauser by a comfortable margin, but Glauser was to reverse the standings in Sunday’s race.

The other racing returnees were Dave Hughes, who finished the meeting with a couple of fine 5th places in the IHRO 350 class, all the more impressive after his poor start in race one when he was almost last away, and Reinhard Neumair,who, despite having been absent for almost of last season made a good showing in both classes and was very happy to be back.

Also returning to the paddock was Bill Wark. Bill said that he considered that he was lucky to have survived last year after his major accident at Gedinne last year and has decided to retire from racing himself, but he still enjoys the atmosphere and company and intends to come to as many events as he can in 2008.

This meeting also hosted the inaugural race of the new IHRO 250cc class. It was a delighted Mick Nash de Villiers who took the honour of being the first class winner, a very creditable result as the Bultaco seized its crank on the entry to the chicane before the start, but Mick pushed in to make this little piece of history.

Debuting a new machine was Andy Reynolds who has been provided with a Paton for his MGP campaign for this year, and Mettet was the perfect place to set it up for the IOM, after a cautious start, Andy found himself liking the machine and came away with 2 fine 5th places in the IHRO races and a win in one of the Belgian races.

Newcomer to the circuit, Vagn Jensen on his beautiful Manxes, came away with a pair of 4th places and a 3rd place out of three starts, he was surprised at the speed of the racing on the straights, but thoroughly enjoyed the event. Another newcomer, both to Mettet and to continental racing was TT star Alan ‘Bud’ Jackson who had a pair of fine 6th places on his Manx, I hope that the bug will have bitten and that we will see him out with IHRO more times this year.

The best race of the weekend was not at the front of any of the classes, but was the battle for 9th – 12th in the Saturday 350 race, Rob den Tieter on his Seeley 7R, fought a long battle to claim 9th place from Bernd Pollmann on his Aermacchi, David Lock on his lovely 7R and Jos Sassen on his Ducati. The battle was intense all race long and had the spectators enthralled. All 4 riders said that it had been one of their best ever races and there was much smiling and handshaking in the paddock on their return.

The IHRO series now moves on to Schleiz in Germany where we hope for similar racing and weather.

Pages: 1 2 3

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Results. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.