Jamie Cringle managed to compress the race at the front to enable Rory Parker (No.90) and Ryan Kneen (8) to close in,

but his plan to delay and divert rival Mikey Evans’s (21) concentration did not fully work. It made for a thrilling finale though

(Photo: John Watterson)

Andreas Racing Association will host its annual endurance race on October 18, but this event rounded off a much-delayed and successful series of solo and sidecar meetings.

It was a fitting climax to a season that celebrated 50 years since the first ever meeting promoted by the club on the nearby road course in April 1970.

There was close action and high-speed thrills throughout the 14-race programme, that concluded with an excellent solo Centre ACU championship.

Although the earlier edition had been won quite convincingly by Mikey Evans by a margin of 8.326 seconds on Graham Wilcock’s 1000cc BMW from Jamie Cringle, this one was very different.

Going into the race, nine points separated the pair for the coveted Isle of Man No1 plate, so Cringle knew he firstly needed to grab the holeshot and then ’slow’ his friend and rival’s progress as much as possible.

It resulted in perhaps the slowest race of the series, but the most intriguing as Cringle made his 1000 Suzuki as ’wide’ as possible in the corners.

This enabled Rory Parker and Ryan Kneen to steadily close in on the leading pair and Cringle’s hope was that they would join the party and perhaps cause some confusion and delay for Evans in the ensuing melee. And it very nearly worked.

Evans managed to get past Cringle down the outside on the back straight at two-thirds distance, but Cringle got him back half-a-lap later.

Parker and Kneen eventually slipped off the back, relieving the pressure on Evans, who was then happy to sit on Cringle’s rear-wheel and cruise home a safe second with the title in the bag.

Evans had also won the 600cc club championship earlier, but that ended in confusion when he pulled in a lap early, confusing the last-lap flag being shown to a lapped rider for what he thought should have been the chequered one for him.

By the time he had come to a halt and been made aware of his error by the paddock marshal, Cringle was well away with it.

So, no winning flourish for Evans, but he had already done enough to secure both titles.


The Crowe brothers simply blitzed the sidecar class, winning both races in style on their ear-splitting Triumph triple.

But, having suffered a major blow-up in the opening race of the season back in July, and missed both days of racing as a result, they were never in a position to secure the title.

That went to the more consistent Harry Payne and Olly Lace on a near bog-standard R6 motor slotted into a chassis built by his father in Colchester.

They battled with Dave Molyneux and Ben Binns virtually throughout, but never quite managed to beat them in a straight race.

They were close again on Sunday when Lace unfortunately cracked three ribs in a brush with another crew’s outfit they were overtaking.

l We’ll take another look back at the club and Centre championships in a couple of weeks time.