The Spring Cup - Oliver's Mount

22 May 2021

High above the town of Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast is a monument to the war dead. It over looks the town and out to sea towards the content of Europe where the hundreds of local volunteers went off to war and now rest in some foreign field. 

The monument sits at the northern end of Oliver’s Mount 2.43 miles long road race track, England's only road race circuit. Most race tracks have a relationship with the world wars in the UK as most are old aerodromes but Scarborough is way too hilly for that, so why is there a race track here?

The relationship to the world wars is a bit tenuous but the first race around the Mount was in 1946, just after the end of the Second World War.

There was definitely a feel good factor going on after the end of hostilities and the population was looking to get back to normal life, so sporting events were encouraged and held all over the UK.

I wasn’t around in 1946 and I’m sure the year long lockdown we have had to endure pales in to insignificance to the horrors of World War Two, but the feel good factor was most certainly in abundance at the Mount when we visited.

The government announced the road map to easing of the COVID 19 lockdown rules some time ago.

This allowed the the Oliver’s Mount team to organize the Spring Cup meeting, permitting a reduced number of road racing fans to get out and a see, smell and hear racing for the first time in a long time.

I’m a fan of Oliver’s Mount and road racing in general, and as the Isle of Man Tourist Trophies are not taking place again this year and Boris eluded that we will be let out in May, I booked my ticket online which downloaded to my phone in quick time.

However, it appeared that tickets were still for sale right up to the start of proceedings; I presume people are still a little wary of crowds. 

The weather on the Friday before Saturday qualifying when we visited  was not good, and it rained a lot. On the long drive up to Scarborough it didn’t look like it was going to improve, but on arrival it started to cheer up.

Arriving at the main gate, a quick scan of my e-ticket on my phone, and we were in parking up in the fast filling soggy car park.

At the far end of the car park is the first bit of track you can access - Drurys Hairpin, a sweeping right hander with very good views of the riders.

A foot bridge to the camp site and the northern section of the track is also located here so after a short stop we headed over. 

The camp site was open with a lot of smart camper vans on display and a few tents. The smell of bacon and sausage greeted us as families got ready for the day’s events, and we headed for the monument to start our day spectating and photographing the racing. 

Saturday is mainly practice and qualifying for the main event on Sunday, with a few races at the end of the day. This has advantages for the spectator photographer, with fewer people and all of the bikes out on track.

It's inevitable that some of the bikes will become casualties. Rad Hughes is a seasoned road race competitor who was competing in the Supersport 600-A on a Kawasaki ZX6R and the Ultra-Lightweight with his Kawasaki ZXR 400 who was to become one of the casualties, blowing the engine and holing a piston.

The racing comes thick and fast at the Mount with not much in the way of delays between races which is good news for the spectator. During one of the short breaks I pulled out my programme which I had picked up from the main entrance when we arrived.

Flicking through the programme there was a healthy entry list, 69 in the Supersport, 25 in the Ultra-Lights, 45 in the twins, 28 in the Classic Superbike and 11 sidecar teams.

A lot of the riders were crossing over in different classes but it was great to see a packed grid for all the races.

The Saturday programme followed a logical order, with seven practice and seven qualifying rounds followed by ten heat races. This gave us loads of opportunities to see all of the riders and how they were tackling different parts of the track.

Pistonclick isn’t a results service, there are loads of better websites at that sort of thing, we like concentrate on the pretty pictures. 

However, a few facts and figures won’t hurt and at the end of the day results do matter, so let’s take a look at the races and racers, with a few pretty pictures thrown in for good measure.

There weren't that many names that I didn’t recognize from the programme -  the obvious ones stood out like Harrison, Bell, Hind, Herbertson, Norbury and Johnstone. 

But the likes of #9 Davey Todd and #74 Joey Thompson also stood as great racers and for no other reason than that I had photographed them recently, Davey at Cadwell last year doing Super Moto and Joey last week at at Oulton Park during the British Super Bike test day.

Joey did well, taking a 250cc win at the Mount after starting last on the grid, a great achievement considering how narrow the Scarborough course is.

I was anticipating a right royal battle between Thompson and Lee Johnston in 250s as they both looked good in Saturday's qualifying, but Johnston pulled out in the final race with what I was told was a caliper problem on lap one. Joey took the 250cc T2 class win.

Davey Todd also performed well with the Wilson Craig Racing Honda. He took second place after coming through from the second row to battle with Dean Harrison in the headline event, the Bob Smith Spring Cup.

The Saturday Classic Superbike winner was Dean Harrison who would go on to dominate in the other classic races over the weekend, setting a new class record of 1 minute 48.664 seconds on a Kawasaki ZXR 750.

David Bell on the Yamaha OWO1 was second and Mike Norbury on another ZXR took the last podium place. Norbury also picked up a brace of third places in the 600 and Twins class to add to his trophy cabinet. 

In the screamer bike class, well that’s what it should be called instead of the ultra lightweights, #16 Mark Purslow on a Kawasaki ZXR 400 won the 400 class, #61 Tom Snow riding a Honda took the overall 250cc 4T class and #22 Tony Flinton on the demure but loud 125cc class.

In the singles #164 Stephen Boyes took the thumper win.

In the twins class once the weekends results were merged, the overall positions were Adam McLean first, Mike Norbury second and Jamie Coward third.

Jim Hind and Ian Lougher on the Paton SR1 looked good in qualifying and ran well in the last twins race thanking 1st and 3rd, however, they both pulled off the grid in one of the races because of battery problems on Jim's bike and a clutch failure on Ian’s bike, reducing their weekend’s points tally.

In the sidecars it was Lee Crawford and Scott Hardie who would dominate all weekend winning all the of the sidecar races. I particularly enjoyed the grass cutting exploits.

That concludes our visit to Oliver’s Mount. If you want a detailed breakdown of the results they can be found here.

One last comment was there was no parade lap on this occasion, which is a shame. Hopefully this will be reinstated once the CV19 restrictions are lifted.

On a positive note Steve Parrish, who was at the Spring Cup, tweeted that it would be good to see a parade lap of Barry Sheene liveried bikes at the The Barry Sheene Classic.

That I would like to see, and looking at the comments on Twitter, so would a lot of other people.