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The Real Cycle People
44 George Street, Perth

Mallory Park – 20/21/22 July

Perthshire's Robbie Stewart very nearly took his second win of the season at Round 9 of the British 125GP Championship at Mallory Park, but in the end had to settle for a lowly 12th place finish after a coming together with fellow Scot Kev Coghlan near the end of the race.

As so often this year, the Mallory round was greatly disrupted by the weather, but the race weekend was also overshadowed by the tragic death of young superbike rider Ollie Bridewell who sadly lost his life as the result of a crash during the first practice session on Friday afternoon. The 21 year old Wiltshire rider was one of the risings stars in the BSB paddock and he will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

With all further track action suspended on Friday and the constant rain continuing to cause major problems around the circuit on Saturday, it was decided that the normal qualifying sessions would be cancelled and grid positions for Sunday's race would be determined instead by championship positions. A slight improvement in conditions in the afternoon allowed each class limited practice time, but Robbie struggled with set up and, despite trying new softer shocks, finished 17th on the timesheets. His championship position however ensured that he would take the final slot on the front row of the grid for Sunday’s race.

Race day dawned dry and bright and Robbie responded with an excellent warm up session in which he not only finished on top of the timesheets but also set a new lap record!

The dry conditions thankfully lasted throughout the day and Robbie enjoyed a brilliant race performance - moving through from 5th place early on to battle for the lead with Kev Coghlan. As Mallory is one of the shortest circuits on the BSB calendar, the two Scots soon caught up with the backmarkers and this allowed Robbie to take the lead. With the laps counting down it looked like another race win was on the cards, but it was not to be. Having caught back up with the Robbie, Kev made a lunge to pass on the penultimate lap, lost the front end, and Robbie - with nowhere to go - was also brought down. Uninjured in the fall, Robbie picked the bike up and remounted to finish in 12th place - a disappointing end to one of his best race performances of the year.

Although he has slipped to sixth in the Championship, Robbie still tops the table in the Cup competition and can look forward to Round 10 at Croft in three weeks time, confident that he’s right back onto race winning form.

Reports from other rounds.

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