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Vintage Road Racing European Championship: the race in Donington Park

Vintage Road Racing European Championship: the race in Donington Park

Photographs courtesy www.pjm-photography.co.uk

Riders of the Vintage Road Race European Championship gathered at the former Grand Prix circuit Anderstorp for the opening round of the 2019 Championship.
Practice and qualifying went without any major problems for the FIME riders who all qualified.
On Saturday the weather was perfect for racing with temperatures in the 20’s and a dry track until the last race when a heavy shower brought out the red flags and an early finish to the days racing. Sunday’s racing resumed with a dry track and the schedule was completed without further interruption.
With a strong Classic Racing base in the UK Great Britain riders dominated the results apart from classes 6 and 7a where Hasse Gustafson ruled the roost for Sweden and took four wins on his Ducati machines. Against tough opposition Tanja Hentschel retained her Class 2 Championship lead with two solid fourth place finishes. David Whitehouse missed the first round in Sweden and now leads the Class three championship after two wins on his Greeves Silverstone. Another UK rider with two wins was Pete Boast on his Honda CB350 machine in Class 3. The UK riders had mixed fortunes in Class 5 with none of them recording two good results to eat into Lars Sanberg’s championship lead. Class 6 was a different story with Hasse Gustafson notching up two wins to draw level on points with Lars Sanberg and Soren Holm only ten points behind on 40.
Hasse Gustafson won both races in class 7a to reduce Jurgen Riedel’s Championship lead to 23 points going into the last round in France. In second place Paul Holiday had two good races on his BMW with Riedel completing the podium on his 985cc Honda.
Last year’s Class 7b Champion sealed the 2019 championship with two straight wins and remains unbeaten this year.
In the newly introduced Post Classic class 9a Rob Witty on his Honda VFR took two wins to leave Donington with 50 points whilst Peter Howarth increased his lead in class 9b to 50 points and almost sure of the Championship.
All in a great weekend enjoyed by over 4500 spectators at a brilliant track
The final round of the FIME Vintage Road Race Championship will take place on 28th-29th September at Pau-Arnos in southern France.