Press Office

Winter Regional Round 1 - 30th October 2005  

Members of the Royston Rockets BMX Racing Club travelled to Peterborough for the first round of the East Anglian Winter Series last Sunday. The track was flooded earlier in the week due to the usual winter weather tried to make it unrideable but stalwart work by club officials enabled the 90+ riders taking part to race on a generally good surface.

 The 2005/6 Winter Race Series has a few changes to last year with the riders now riding in 4 qualifying races rather than the more common 3 rounds and for this year the overall series ranking points have been adjusted so every race produces some points, not just the finals.

 The youngest class are nominally 7 years and under and are known as Formula 5 and Royston had three riders in the class with the best result going to Aaron Dalleywater who finished in 4^th in the A final, ahead of Bradan Blanche who finished in 8^th and Daniel Blanche who took 2^nd in the B final. In Formula 4 for 8-10 year olds, the Rockets 4 riders with James Handleigh taking a fine overall A final win with Louis Burton in 5^th and Kyle Gutteridge in 7^th whlst the youngest rider in the class, Ethan Lewis, took 7^th in the B final. Another 3 Rockets were to be found competing in Formula 3 (11-13 years) with Anthony Taylor taking 5^th and Ben Gutteridge taking 7^th in the A final whilst another young rider, Aston Blanche took 8^th in the B final. Both Royston members made the A final in the Formula 2 class with Wayne Gutteridge finishing in 6^th just ahead of Katie Roberts in 7^th. Formula 1 for riders 17 years and over was by far the biggest on the day and the three Rockets had varying success with Jonathan Roberts finishing in 6^th in the A final, Lee Alexander took 8^th in the B final after finding the effects of a recent operation slowing down his pace and in the C final Royston’s newest member, James Dalleywater finished in 2^nd place.

 The Royston Rockets are hosting Round 2 of the Winter Series on November 20^th at their track in Burns Road. Official practice starts at 11-45am and rider registration closes at 12-00 noon with racing starting around 12-45pm – or sooner if the weather is bad!

 Full details of forthcoming club and regional events are published on the club web site at www.roystonrockets.co.uk, or ring 01763 260959 for more information on BMX racing.