NG Road Racing, Oulton Park, 5th April 2014

The NG Road Racing Club laid on packed 20 race program for their second meeting of the season at Oulton Park, headlined by the Phoenix Open championship and the ACU National 250GP Series.

BSB refugee Peter Hickman was a wildcard entry for Phoenix Open and Powerbike races, the tall Lincolnshire rider using the meeting as a test before a season on the road racing circuits of Ireland and the Isle Of Man. Hickman took a shine to his new BMW S1000RR, setting a pole time for the Phoenix Open race over four seconds clear of the chasing pack. As the lights turned green, however, it was reigning NG Champion Phil Bevan who led the pack into Old Hall, with Hickman content to follow for the opening few laps.

The Ice Valley rider made his move on lap three, and from then on steadily pulled away from Bevan, with Jamie Harrison coming home third. Hickman also took a comfortable victory in the Powerbike race, again leading Phil Bevan’s Kawasaki ZX-10R home, with Darren Rumley third on his bellowing KTM RC8-R.

A full grid of 24 250cc GP bikes lined up on the grid for the ACU National 250GP race, with Chris Martin bolting into an early lead on his Honda, chased by the lovely Yamaha TZ250s of Phil Atkinson and Ant Hodson. Atkinson followed the Honda closely for the first few laps, before falling away to finish over nine seconds adrift of the charging Martin, with Hodson completing the podium 30 seconds behind the victor.

Former British Sidecar champions Sean Hegarty and James Neave were also using this meeting as test ahead of a campaign in the Eastern Airways British Sidecar Championship, and utterly dominated both the qualification race and the final onboard their LCR Suzuki, with winning margins of 31 and 42 seconds respectively. Local riders Daniel Knight and Daniel Evanson took a distant second in the final, with John Holden and Andy Winkle taking victory in the Formula 2 class.

Kiaran Hankin took a hard fought win in a typically close 600cc encounter, holding off a late charge from Crewe rider Chris Mort, with reigning British Motostar champion Tom Carne coming home third on his Triumph Daytona 675.

Full results from a packed day of motorcycle racing can be found here.

Words and photography by Richard Crawford.

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