Davies Rises Above  (Mar 8, 2010)

Thoresway near Caistor, Lincs, was to be the venue for the third round of the 2009 British 2 Stroke Championship.

The extremely fast circuit set in its own natural valley was bathed in sunshine as the qualifying sessions began, the 125's were split into two groups as per normal with Jim once again in qualifying group two. Jim took to the track for his session and used the few minutes available before the 'clock' began to acclimatise himself to his surroundings and to explore and find the best lines, at the end of the group two qualifier he had posted a time good enough to give himself fifth position.

The start of race one would not be good for Jim as the wide start straight soon narrowed into a series of 's's bends that would see the field of riders condense only to be funneled through slowly and expanding out at the same time spreading the field out quickly. Once through the worst of the traffic Jim opened the taps on the TM and began scything through the field at an incredible rate. With third place in his sights a the red flags were shown and the race was stopped due to a fallen rider, thus giving Jim fourth position for race one, or so he thought!.

With the fallen rider having been laying on the side of the track since the first couple of laps, with yellow flags everywhere, some waved, some stationary, with 'officials' standing in the lines of riders committed to a jump and with the 'race' being allowed to run on 3-4 laps before the red flag was shown, confusion reigned. For 2nd place championship runner Jim and fellow rider and championship contender Lloyd Morgan bad news was to come their way. With the best part of forty riders on track, many of whom were also clearly committing the same 'offences' Jim and Lloyd were the only two to be 'witnessed' for some strange reason and singled out to receive 1 minute time penalties for yellow flag infringements.
This was sad news for them, their supporters, those that had witnessed the other 'offenders' but whose opinions were ignored and most of all for the championship, the harsh penalty had helped the series leader into a comfortable 'cushion' in the standings.


Race two saw Jim into the top ten once the first few turns had been completed, once again he began methodically carving his way on the screaming TM through to the sharp end of the field, only to then drop the bike on the second lap exiting a turn on the top part of the circuit. As small as the little slip off was the bars dug into the hard ground and bent the mountings leaving Jim to see the race through holding onto the machine in a very difficult and uncomfortable position. with a determined ride by Jim a very hard fought and well earned third place was his reward.

Jim finally got the start he wanted in race three and was in the top four in no time, within a lap he was in second place, pulling away from third and homing in on the leader. Jim had the TM on the stop, the smell of ELF oil and that incredible TM noise both exiting that gorgeous polished HGS exhaust system was a joy to behold, however the noise exiting from race leader Willet's Yamaha was less pleasant. Sure enough a problem was confirmed as Willet passed the pitbox waving his arms in frustration at his sick machine. With Willet floundering and being swallowed by the chasing pack Jim, head down, pushed on in the lead only to be passed on the last lap by wildcard rider Arnold who took the win.
the final results where, 14 - 3 - 2, and an overall win was lost with the time penalty incurred effectively making the score for race one zero.

Well done to Jim, Bobs, his supporters and of course to all his sponsors, and best wishes to the fallen rider in race one who is believed to have broken his arm/collarbone.

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