September 23 2016.

17th & 18th September 2016, Penkridge, Staffordshire
Report: Roy Barton

The twelfth running of the QRA Great 8 Endurance Festival took place at a new venue just outside of Penkridge in Staffordshire. Catering mainly for Quads but including a class of Minibikes the event was split in to a four-hour session for the Youth Riders, an hour for the Evo class and two hours for the minibike riders on the Saturday. As an extra bit of fun, the organisers tagged on a one-hour session for ‘Big Kids’, grown adults on 50cc or 100cc kids’ quad bikes.


McLernon chases down Owen in amongst the traffic.

An overcast and windy morning greeted the youth riders as they gathered for their sighting lap ahead of the 9.30 start time. The riders line-up ‘Le Mans’ style based upon last year’s positions and have to run to their machines when the flag is lifted to signify the start. First out of the blocks was the number 7 Team of Alfie Walker and Josh Birch closely followed by Chad Pryce/Jamie Ainsworth and Marcus Sprason/Katrin Davies with the lead riders taking on the first part of the four-hour session. The course covered some open field areas as well as grassy sections with tight woodland thrown in. Walker was still in front at the end of lap one with a time of 6:29. Olly Martin riding as an Ironman, taking on the four hours on his own, had made his way up to second place with Sprason still in third. Axel Bone, paired up with Zak Orchard, was lying fourth with JJ Readman, the second Ironman rider, in sixth just ahead of Will Dunlop. Martin had made a move for the front on lap two and had an advantage of just over a second from Walker and Sprason who were locked together. Walker managed to maintain the gap over Martin but the pairing of George Oliver and Nathan Penrose had moved into third with Sprason back in fifth. Martin lost his lead to Oliver/Penrose on lap five before pitting and re-joining the race back in sixth. By lap ten, Walker/Birch were back in front having deposed Bone and Orchard. The leading two teams opened up a gap on the rest of the field and, although Walker and Birch ran at the front for the majority of the remaining time, pit stops for rider changes allowed Bone and Orchard to take over on occasion. By the end of the four hours there were still three quads on the lead lap with 38 completed, but it was Walker and Birch that took the chequered flag with a slender 16-second gap over Bone and Orchard. Kieran Taylor and Joseph Jukes were five minutes back in third place having come through from fifteenth at the start. Chloe Keitch rode a sensible session in the Ironman class and, after dropping down the order early on, started to make steady progress and was soon running with Will Dunlop in eighth and ninth overall and exchanging places throughout. Martin set the early pace but spent 45 minutes in the pits midrace dropping him down the order. Keitch finally got the better of Dunlop with seven laps to go and went on to take the class win by three minute from Dunlop with Lewis Carter coming home in third spot.

The Youth A (max 125cc) class win went to Josh Woodruff and Rory Wood after an early race battle with Jake and Ethan Best with James Maybury and Frank Marston finishing in third with the event being James’ first since moving up from the 90cc Miniquad class.

The Evo one-hour session consisted of two classes with a fairly even split between Quads and Trikes and it was Geoff Otway on his Yamaha Banshee who got the holeshot. Unfortunately, his race was to last just a few bends when the front tracking snapped over the first jump and ended his day. Steve Bradbury took over the front running on another Banshee until electrical gremlins set in on lap three and eventually sidelined him after twenty minutes. Paul Clarke then took up the running on his Honda Quad, but Simon Hammersley was on fire on a 250 Trike and closed down on Clarke and made a move for the front on six. Clarke kept the pressure on and hit the front once again with two laps to go but the lead was short-lived as Hammersley retook the lead and the victory by twenty seconds. Clarke won the Quad class ahead of Sam Willetts and James Williamson, all completing 11 laps with Williamson less than a second from being lapped by Hammersley. Richard Slack took second in the Trike class and Sixth overall with Michael Kunica in third.


George Oliver on his way to setting the fastest lap of the youth race.

The ’Big Kids’ one-hour session turned out to be the fun event that it was planned to be with Eugene Plank, Darren Plank and Bradley Benson all riding in close proximity, so close that at times there was some pushing and shoving going on to gain an advantage. When the flag dropped, Eugene Plank took the win by six seconds from Darren Plank with Benson retiring early. Graham Guy was in serious race mode on the 90cc Can-Am and streaked away to a two-lap victory from first-timer Tracey Lloyd. Everybody’s money would have been on multi-British Champion Jason Wildman before the start……..until it became obvious that he had failed to de-restrict the Yamaha and he had to make do with plodding around at the rear, regularly riding on two wheels and even stopping for a beer to relieve the boredom.

Saturday Results
Youth Overall
1. 7, Alfie Walker & Josh Birch, Honda/Yamaha, 38 Laps
2. 56, Axel Bone & Zak Orchard, Yamaha/Yamaha, 38 Laps
3. 19, Kieran Taylor & Joseph Jukes, Honda/Yamaha, 38 Laps
4. 97, George Oliver & Nathan Penrose, Yamaha, 37 Laps
5. 118, Chad Pryce & Jamie Ainsworth, Yamaha/Yamaha, 37 Laps
6. 60, Chloe Keitch, Yamaha, 36 Laps

Youth Ironman
1. 60, Chloe Keitch, Yamaha, 36 Laps
2. 93, Will Dunlop, Yamaha, 36 Laps
3. 5, Lewis Carter, Yamaha, 31 Laps

Youth A
1. 12, Josh Woodruff & Rory Wood, Yamaha/Cobra, 31 Laps
2. 10, Jake Best & Ethan Best, Yamaha/Cobra, 30 Laps
3. 16, James Maybury & Frank Marston, Yamaha/Apache, 25 Laps

EVO Overall
1. 4, Simon Hammersley, Honda Trike, 11 Laps
2. 33 Paul Clarke, Honda Quad, 11 Laps
3. 44, Sam Willetts, Honda Quad, 11 Laps
4. 8, James Williamson, Honda Quad, 11 Laps
5. 78 David Smith, KTM Quad, 10 Laps

EVO Trike
1. 4, Simon Hammersley, Honda, 11 Laps
2. 5, Richard Slack, Honda, 10 Laps
3. 3, Michael Kunica, 8 Laps

Big Kids 100cc
1. 181, Graham Guy, Can Am, 19 Laps
2. 25, Tracey Lloyd, Suzuki, 17 Laps
3. 13, Jason Wildman, Yamaha, 12 Laps
4. 7, Ben Richmond, Honda, 10 Laps

Big Kids 50cc
1. 45, Eugene Plank, Suzuki, 13 Laps
2. 41, Darren Plank, Suzuki, 13 Laps
3. 44 Bradley Benson, Suzuki 4 Laps

Sunday morning saw the site cloaked in morning mist which soon cleared to leave a lovely sunny late summer day with a bumper entry of 81 quads getting ready to line-up for the start of the main 8-Hour endurance race. When Tony Nash of the QRA raised the flag for the start, last year’s Champion team of Harry Walker and Kieron Power crossed the line first to grab the holeshot. Power was standing in for the injured Bailey Edwards. Ben Richmond/Jason Macbeth were away in second with Chris Keitch/Jack Naylor third. At the end of the five and half minute first lap, the pairing of Ant Barrett and Mark McLernon were leading the pack ahead of Richmond/Macbeth, with Keitch/Naylor clinging on to third and Paul Winrow/Rhydian Owen hot on their heels. Richmond/Macbeth managed to maintain second for three laps until the team of Sheldon Seal and Harry Miller managed to pull through the pack to take up the chase on Barret and McLernon with Winrow and Owen still in the hunt. The three teams were setting such a hot pace that it was proving too much for the rest of the field with only Richmond/Macbeth ever getting near them again. The lead was to change hands many times throughout the eight hours with rider changes and pit stops, Barrett and McLernon had one machine failure, leaving them to continue on just one machine putting it under a huge strain with the pace out front.


Seal looking relaxed on his way to second.

At half race distance, Seal/Miller held first place but with Barrett/McLernon and Winrow/Owen both less than two seconds behind. Jordan Turnock and Dafydd Davies had moved up to take over fourth place ahead of Keitch and Naylor, albeit one lap adrift of the leading trio. At the five-hour mark the lap times set by the leaders was still on a par with the first laps and not one of the three was going to let up, the order was the same but the covering gap was still only two seconds. Fourth place was now held by Luke Davies and James Bevan ahead of Keitch and Naylor with Turnock and Davies just behind. At the six-hour mark Seal and Miller still led the pack but Winrow/Owen had pushed hard and passed Barrett/McLernon for second but now there was less than a second between the three and the battle was set to rage throughout the remaining two hours. Keitch and Naylor kept their lap times consistent and had taken fourth position. The next hour saw a change of positions at the front following pit stops and rider changes with Winrow/Owen taking over at the front ahead of Barrett/McLernon and Seal/Miller in third, still with less than one second covering all three. Keitch/Naylor continued in fourth but such was the pace of the leading trio they were now two laps adrift. Winrow took over the hot seat from Owen on lap 76, the change-over dropped them to third, but he set about closing the gap with McLernon running at the front. Miller pulled in to hand over to Seal on lap 77, which dropped them to third and he was chasing hard.

After the pit stops, McLernon was leading with a 45-second advantage over Winrow, and Seal a further minute adrift. Seal was setting the fastest lap times of the trio, whilst Winrow was closing on McLernon. By lap 82 McLernon’s lead was down to less than 30 seconds with Seal only 30 seconds behind Winrow – at this point they were projected to cross the line within seconds of each other. On lap 83, disaster struck the Barrett/McLernon team when the second team quad finally succumbed to the pressure and expired within sight of the pit lane, leaving Winrow to take up the running. He was not able to ease up though as Seal was closing in by 10 seconds every lap and, with six minutes left on the clock, had two laps to close down the 19-second gap, whilst Mclernon was towed back to the pits to attempt to get his quad restarted. Winrow managed to maintain his pace on the next lap and put some backmarkers between himself and Seal gaining some vital time and eventually took the win by twelve seconds. Meanwhile Barrett and McLernon worked frantically to get the bike running just long enough to leave the pits and cross the line ahead of Keitch and Naylor in fourth with Davies/Bevan fifth and Turnock/Davies sixth ahead of Richmond/Macbeth, all with 79 laps completed.

SUNDAY RESULT
Great 8 Overall
1. 113, Paul Winrow/Rhydian Owen, Yamaha/Honda, 85 Laps
2. 8, Sheldon Seal/Harry Miller, Yamaha/Yamaha, 85 Laps, + 12 Seconds
3. 55, Ant Barrett/Mark McLernon, Suzuk/ Suzuki, 83 Laps
4. 2, Chris Keitch/Jack Naylor, Suzuki/Suzuki, 83 Laps, + 1:13 Seconds
5. 71, Luke Davies James Bevan, Yamaha/Yamaha, 82 Laps
6. 9, Jordan Turnoc/ Dafydd Davies, HondaKTM, 82 Laps, + 1:52 Seconds
7. 14, Ben Richmond/Jason Macbeth, Yamaha/Yamaha, 82 Laps, + 1:19 Seconds
8. 119, Elliot Downes/Jordan Hickman, Yamaha/Honda, 80 Laps
9. 24, Ben Morgan/Jamie Morgan, Honda/Honda, 79 Laps
10. 177, Jim Woolmington/Radford Chugg, Can Am/Suzuki, 79 Laps, + 1:21

Great 8 Ironman
1. 181, Graham Guy, Can Am, 67 Laps
2. 36, Danny Percival, Honda, 66 Laps
3. 16, Ricky Roberts, Yamaha, 66 Laps, + 5 Seconds

Great 8 Ironquad
1. 56, Jamie Bone/Andy Bone, Honda, 69 Laps
2. 134, Elizabeth Price/Gareth Price, Suzuki, 69 Laps, + 3:38 Seconds
3. 35, Amy Keitch/Grace Keitch, Suzuki, 66 Laps

Great 8 Evo
1. 112, Oliver Meredith/Richard Slack, Honda Trike, 53 Laps
2. 44, Andrew Willetts/Robert Willetts, Honda/Yamaha Quad, 48 Laps

Great 8 Ladies
1. 24, Gemma Pryce/Georgia Lent, Suzuki/Yamaha, 72 Laps
2. 35, Amy Keitch/Grace Keitch, Suzuki, 66 Laps
3. 87, Amy Pryce Draper/Charlie Walker, Suzuki/Yamaha, 65 Laps

Great 8 4x4
1. 6, Steve Atkins/Martin Benbow, Can Am/Can Am, 76 Laps
2. 13, Jason Wildman/Jon Morgan, Polaris/Polaris, 75 Laps
3. 47, Simon David/Sam Clowes, Can Am Can Am, 74 Laps
4. 18, Endaf Owen/Tom Jones, Polaris/Polaris, 73 Laps
5. 26, Laura Linton/Andrew Pickles, Can Am/Can Am, 70 Laps


Zaffino heads Downes