‘Plus Ça Change, Plus C’est la Même Chose’ or ‘The more things change, the more they stay the same’.

Over the winter, there were some changes of machines and riders made among the top teams in IHRO, Lea Gourlay was now riding solely for Roger Winfield on his new 500 Paton and 350 Aermacchi and many predicted a total whitewash of the races as arguably the best rider in IHRO now had arguably the fastest bikes.

Luke Notton’s ride in the John Oldfield team would be taken by Belgian hard charger Eric Genin.

Last year’s new arrival Mike Smith had signalled his intention not to ride on the roads this year so it would be up to veteran Dave Hughes to make the best of Tony Dunnell’s Manxes on his own.

MGP winner Derek Whalley was due to be the permanent rider for Dick Linton on his very fast 350 and 500 Aermacchis and would be competing abroad for the first time for a few years.

Also changing was the rider for the Brian Richards Equipe, with Phill Sharp taking a season off to concentrate on his business, Scots roads specialist Bill Wark would take his ride.

A return to competition of Ives Glauser after his accident at Schleiz last year also signalled that perhaps Gourlay and the others would not have their own way.

Mettet 12-13th May 2007

The practice opened under heavy skies and soon Gourlay dominated, with the fastest lap in 350 practice by nearly some 6.5 seconds from Glauser who was just ahead of Hughes with Whalley and Wark in close attendance, he also set his mark on the 500 practice riding last year’s Manx Norton due to the Paton’s indisposition, leading Genin but this time by only 1.5 seconds with Glauser 0.1 behind and Whalley again in striking distance

The 350 race started as always for IHRO with a push start, and with a combination of an uphill start line and IOM tall gearing this did not help many people who struggled to get away cleanly, but it particularly worked against Gourlay who had elected to try to start on his own without a pusher despite his injured foot, he was last away and Whalley, Glauser on his father’s Aermacchi after the 7R had broker a rocker in practice, and Wark had a fair battle at the front until Gourlay came past on lap 4 of 6 to claim the first victory of the year, further down the field there was a fantastic scrap between David Lock on his newly rebuilt immaculate 7R, Joss Sassen on his Ducati and Rob Den Tieter on his Seeley 7R, honours finally went to Den Tieter with Lock just behind and Sassen bringing up the back only a second behind Den Tieter.

For the 500 race, Gourlay elected to start from the back of the grid with a pusher, having aggravated his injury in his first race start attempt. Veteran Tony Smith faired much better with his push start and led at the end of the first lap from Glauser, Genin and Hughes, Gourlay was charging through the field but his Manx spluttered as it crossed the line on lap 3 and he retired soon after with fuel problems. This left Genin to win the first 500 race of the year with Glauser right behind him.

The results of Sunday’s 350 race was similar to Saturdays but without Wark who had shed a chain on the 3rd lap, with the benefit of a pusher, Gourlay won convincingly from Whalley and Glauser.

As the Sunday 500 race came to the line, there was thunder and lightning in the air, prompting fears of similar conditions to last year when the race was halted due to a Torrential thunderstorm. However it proved to be a real cracker, with victory just going to Gourlay from a very determined Glauser, Genin had had a very bad start and carved through the field to finish a fantastic 3rd after he and Smith had had a close call at the hairpin on lap 3, another poor starter was Hughes who fought his way up to 7th, just behind Ton Groot and Smith.