One of the hottest afternoons of the year for racing blessed the third round of the Euro-Vets Grand Prix as Horspath CSC staged the meeting as part of the club's proud and very successful 70 year anniversary, the GP being just one of a whole series of various category meetings taking place over the weekend, masterminded by Geoff Gamage and Rachel Lammin. And a brilliant job they made of this one. Well done Horspath!

I will try to catch up with some sense of the individual performances when I've trimmed a few videos to remind myself of a bit of detail, but in the meantime here are the current (latest!) result sheets and the match programmes.

*currently I'm not including any scores for our Ladies' races or the new "Open" category, but that may be temporary until I've discussed it with my Sowerby Bridge Supervisor (Fred).

As always, I hope the eagle-eyed out there will help me fettle any errors.

I have to mention our Referee on the day, Poole's Tim Balding, and thank him for a great job. There may have been a few 50-50s along the way (the damage I left with prompting one pictorial mention here and a short video here of another) but overall very well managed when no-one else fancied the job! Thanks Tim.

By now, as usual, I have few memories of what went on during the two E-V matches so I always end up generalising unless I have video to help. 

But first off, considering the occasion here at this very successful and long-established Club it was another disappointing turnout of Veteran racers so we must thank all of those who did make the trip. Yet again it was the presence of the brilliant Leicester riders old and new that enabled the whole thing, especially the under 50 set, with Poole, Great Blakenham and the Welsh clubs boosting our numbers enough to make both matches viable.

Newcomers, East Newport's Adam Peck scorched to a maximum score while new local sensation Matt Wakefield also had a fantastic debut in our Grand Prix series, both qualifying easily for the Over 35 "A" Final together with a resurgent Craig Marchant and the ever present and rapid Kev Burns. I find it fascinating that such tall riders (Craig aside!) can motor around little tracks so swiftly. 

Ditto Birmingham's Mark Winwood who stormed to victory in a hectic Over 50s "A" Final after a restart saw series leader Mark Whitehead lose out to Great Blakenham's Jason Ashford and Newport's Lee Galley following a demon start in the first effort when he was away clean.

There aren't too many six footers in the Over 60 camp, where homester Richard Edge took the "A" Final win over Brummie Paul Timms, East Park's ever-reliable Bob Prince and East Newport's Rob Absalom.

In the Open category (to be revamped, aka fully established, for 2025) Lucy Whitehead romped away in the final to head home Leicester clubmate Jason Onions, continuing his steady progress (lower your saddle young man!), Newport improver Harvey Yard and our third Leicester rep Honey Whitehead.

There's a lot of head scratching going on just now about the shape of things to come. Obviously travel cost has a big influence on turnout but we may have to spice things up somehow to keep the ball rolling, and I'm not just talking about the Euro-Vets meetings. Fred Rothwell does have ideas and no doubt others may have, to try and ensure the whole Sport has a decent future. Rightly or wrongly (as it would appear) I had always assumed that once you reach veteran status there's only one place left for you if you want regular racing without the prospect of 70 year olds or 35 year olds at their peak racing infants, and that's the E-V series. Doesn't look that way in reality. Covid must have caused a hit but the cost of living probably more so. Answers on a postcard.

Here is the Over 35 "A" Final cracker, won by Adam Peck.

The Podiums- Over 60s, Over 50s and Over 35s.