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Blackdragon Pete strikes again.

With no less than 9 bikes making strong horsepower and 11 track records being broken, last Sunday’s George Brown Memorial Sprint held at Smeatharpe’s Dakota Raceway turned out to be a real scorcher, writes NSA commentator Jerry Cookson.

In sweltering conditions a steady entry of National Sprint Association riders braved the 30 degree plus heat to surprisingly outperform most of their previous times established this season at the Devonshire quarter mile. The first to out gun his previous best was Blackdragon Motorcycles Pete Ford with the high revving blown 750cc Suzuki combo. Having celebrated a youthful(!) birthday the previous weekend racing a similar bike up Wiscombe Hill Climb, Pete topped the timing charts very early on in the day with a 9.116/148.55 to establish yet another new 750cc Racing class track record reset just 6 weeks previous at Dakota.

Despite a few 60ft split second stutters Andy Boswell’s Cornish based 1200cc B&H Harley drag bike was in full command of the Unlimited Racing class with two 9.3s outings that resulted in a best of 9.314s at 149.70 mph, and yet another track record. In close contention but still competing on an unfamiliar bike was Mark Taylor who this time was taking laps on a 1300cc Busa which was good for a 9.368 at 166.09 mph ticket.

Barry Varndell’s turbo’d Z1170 Kawasaki turned out to be the only contender for Superstreet honours, and wound up third fastest with three consecutive mid nine second passes; the best being a class track busting 9.511s. Fourth quickest from the 1000cc Racing class was Blackjack Racing’s Simon Havercroft, a previous Dakota winner. From his two early session runs Simon’s GSXR1000 ran a 9.618s which eventually stayed in contention for most of the day despite the lightening attempts made by Paul Hayman’s similar big ‘S’ machine. His best was a 9.725s that was good enough for fifth fastest. Sixth fastest from the 1000cc Road Legal category was Steve Everett’s mighty Busa at 9.668s.

Also running the numbers was Andrew Langdon’s screamin’ 750cc Honda VFR resulting in the bike running it’s first ever nine second quarter. Talk about the flying duck theory, this one was dam near in ballistic mode as it flew across the distance in 9.838s.

Also breaking records was the incredible 472 RD Yamaha of Neill Curtis to wipe out Kerry Phillips’ record of 11.465 with a lower than low 11.086. Stuart Buchanan equalled his personal best figures for his 250cc Honda drag bike with a 14.157s while in the Junior category Chloe Hayman over took Jack Taylor’s 19.539s record with a class winning 19.228s.

It all came good later in the day for Scooter wizard Adie Horrocks as his highly tuned and much modified Vespa rewrote its own class record to pull a 12.836s out of the hat over his previous best of 12.901. Vintage class racer John Young lowered his own 500cc Pre ’46 record to 12.973s on one of his two Tri/JAP 500s; 12.999 while in the Classic Non-Japanese 2021 class NSA Champion Jasper Joy ran an effortless 12.404s on his Triumph Trident. In the 400cc Road Legal class Karl Jefferies pushed his multi-coloured Yamaha to a 12.992s to please dad Glenn who is still on the mend after his ‘off’ at the last meet at Dakota. Well done gang and to everyone else who supported or officiated during the day.

The next NSA Sprint is back with a two day August Bank Holiday scorcher (Saturday 27th/Sunday 28th) at Somerset’s Westonzoyland Sprint Strip that’s bound to produce another bumper entry.

Photos courtesy Carol Jenkinson