Jenkins maintains series lead after Welsh success

It was yet another circuit that was new to the Ruskington rider but he knuckled down in Friday’s test day to learn the circuit and find his braking markers in preparation for Saturday qualifying and the first two races of the weekend.

In the qualifying session Jenkins struggled to get a clear lap in but on the final lap of the session he recorded the fourth fastest lap overall in the mixed grid of Seniors and Freshmen and second in his class which earned a second row start to the first race.

Jenkins settled into third place and on the final lap made a good, clean pass and took the lead. But while defending his inside line the rider in second place made a mistake and wiped both himself and Jenkins out resulting in a non-finish.

In race two, once again starting from the second row, Jenkins made a great start and took the lead. But while holding a comfortable lead and with eight laps remaining, the race was red flagged and he had to do it all again.

At the restart Jenkins once again got a good start but another rider jumped the lights.

Jenkins thought he had a 10s advantage so played it safe and followed him home thinking he had the win, only to find he was awarded second place as the jump start had not been noticed by the timing officials.

On Sunday Jenkins got a clean start to his third race and lead from lights to flag to take a solid win and 25 points.

Spurred on by his earlier victory Jenkins was eager to repeat the experience and was through to the lead on the opening lap. He remained in control until lap seven when his foot peg came loose.

He managed to complete the race in second place and explained: “I managed to remove the rest of the foot peg along the back straight but that caused my gear shift to get wedged between the frame and gear linkage and I had to finish the rest of the race in fourth gear. But I managed to bring the bike home for second place.”

Jenkins still leads the championship by 25 points from Bradley Smith with two rounds remaining.

The penultimate round is a one day meeting at Oulton Park on Saturday, September 17 with just two races instead of the usual four.