The IHRO Continental Circus returned to it’s spiritual home of the Schleizer Dreieck in Germany for the second race in this years series on 20/21 June.

As always the weather was good and a strong field enjoyed the typical hospitality which IHRO is afforded by the enthusiastic organisers, and their key person, Klaus Schreiner.

There were separate 250/350cc and 500cc races with a small number of guest riders allowed in by IHRO as they had not been able to get rides in other classes.

This year there was a new format to the event, with free practice on Friday and timed practice on Saturday morning and then a sprint race on Saturday afternoon followed by the main races on Sunday, this was favoured by everyone over the previous years when there had been 3 practice sessions.

The first event was the 250/350cc Sprint race and Lea Gourlay profited from Ives Glauser engine troubles to win comfortably from James Walker who was enjoying his first outing of the year on Dennis Gaskins’ Aermacchi despite having a slipping clutch, third was Franz Glauser, upholding the family honour to claim last place on the 350 podium. In the 250 class which was run concurrent with the 350cc, Wolfgang Esche managed to beat Ela Heck by 3 seconds. The real battle again was not at the front but for 7th Place which was just won by Rob den Tieter on his Seeley 7R from Jos Sassen, Mick Moreton, Alex Siertsma and poor starting, but hard charging Rob Rowe, less than 4 seconds separated the group at the flag.

The 500cc Sprint race was next, no-one was betting against Lea Gourlay winning on Roger Winfield’s Paton, but Ives Glauser did his best to give him a hard time on his Seeley G50, third was Peter Branton on his IHRO debut ride, Jarno Jonker on the beautifully prepared Becks BMW was 4th, and a fully revitalised Reinhard Neumair was 5th on his Norton. There was again a battle royal lower down the field for 11th place, with Mick Moreton just getting the result from Jan Koning and Jan Brouwer with only just over one second separating them.

Mick Moreton had a real surprise later in the day at the Hotel Luginsland provided ( thanks Otto ) IHRO social when he was awarded the IHRO trophy for overall sportsmanship throughout the year. Mick was half way through one of Otto’s Bratwurst when the result was announced, but despite nearly choking, he managed to put together a few heartfelt words of thanks.

Sunday’s programme was started by the 12 lap 250/350cc race. True to form, Lea Gourlay won from guest rider Thomas Wyss on his Ducati with Franz Glauser again in third place. Sassen and Den Tieter rejoined battle with Den Tieter taking the result by 0.3 second. The 250 class provided yet another first for IHRO, the first race class win by a lady rider. The skilful and very hard riding Ela Heck on her Maico forgo her normal place behind a camera to record a stunning first IHRO win. Ela had been second the day before in the sprint race, after having elected to have a pusher from the back of the grid as she feared she would not be able to start her Maico having never competed in a push start race before. She lost the win by just less than the starting penalty, and so for Sunday she was determined to start the bike herself and she got a a good start and went into a lead which she never relinquished.

The 500 race was again a Gourlay benefit, but this time Ives Glauser managed to push him for the first few laps and they both put on a fantastic display of hard, on the edge riding which had the commentator screaming praise and the crowd on their feet applauding. Peter Branton repeated his podium placing form Saturday and again Jarno Jonker was 4th. Jan Brouwer decided to play with Jose Van Meurs this time, and the two of them had a fantastic scrap with Jan just getting the result. Also making his IHRO debut was 20 year old Rutger Stoop, who had a guest ride with us as his the AMC class was full, despite it only being his second season of racing, he rode really well and we must hope that having learned so much from the old guys, he took nearly 20 seconds off his previous best lap time at Schleiz by watching and learning from the men he was following that he will be back next year, Classic racing in all it’s forms needs new young talent like this.

Being typically efficient, the organisers have already announced next year’s date as 12-14 June, IHRO has already signed a contract and will be there !.