EMRA Championship Positions
125cc Racing Machines table at 25 September 2008
| Position | Rider | Points |
| First | Ross Humphries - CHAMPION | 114 |
| Second | John Lea | 91 |
| Third | Danny Smith | 64 |
| Fourth | Tom Weedon | 62 |
| Fifth | John Everesfield | 55 |
| Sixth | Shaun Winfield | 40 |
Mallory Park 02/03/08
Fisrt meeting of the year (2008) saw us at Mallory Park for a very cold first round of the EMRA Club Championship. After qualifying, Ross was third on the grid behind John Lea and David Bursnoll
Race one was pretty much a race long dice between Ross and John Lea, with John betting the better run past the back numbers to take the win with Ross second and Shaw Winfield third.
Race two was a repeat of the first but with Ross finishing just 3.2 seconds behind John Lea. Ross took consolation in having the fastest lap - 58.66!
Cadwell Park 15-16/03/08
Cadwell Park was next for the first round of the New ERA Honda Superclub Championships.
Qualifying was wet which saw Ross post a time of 1.55.69. Enough to put him third on the grid behind Sam Crookes and Josh Eversfield.
The race turned into a two rider affair with the win going to Lee Costello and Ross getting the second place. Both riders lapped everyone up to third place.
Although there were two races on Sunday, Ross elected not to ride due to flooding on parts of the track.
Mallory Park 30/3/08
The first round of the New ERA Club Championship at Mallory Park. A cool qualifying session saw Ross post a time of 1.01.43 to put him third on the grid.
Race one was a two-way scrap between Ross and John Lea as Ed Rendall was knocked off on the start line. The result was John Lea first and Ross second.
Race two and Ed Rendall took the win with John Lea second and Ross third.
Mallory Park 20/04/08
EMRA Club Championship Round 2 at Mallory Park saw a wet and cold qualifying session, with Ross getting his first Pole position with a time of 1.06.154.
David Renz got a blinding start which paid off because the race was stopped on lap five with the result going to Renz with Ross second.
Race two and Renz made another brilliant start but Ross stayed with him and passed him at one point. Renz retook the lead and made the best of the back numbers to take the win with Ross once again second.
Oulton Park 26/04/08
The third round of the New ERA Superclub Championships took place at Oulton Park and was a meeting of mixed fortunes.
Qualifying went well with Connor Behan on Pole and Ross second. On the warm-up lap Ross stopped with a fuelling problem, leaving Connor to win by 21 seconds.
Race two and Ross was suffering from lack of track time as he could only manage a 4th place, although he took 3 seconds off his qualifying time.
The meeting had served its purpose of valuable practice and set up time for the next race, British Superbikes at Oulton Park.
Oulton Park 03-05/05/08
Ross competed for the first time in the 125 British Championships as part of the Bank Holiday British Superbikes meeting at Oulton Park.
The meeting is strung out over three days: day 1 - 2 practice sessions; day 2 - 2 qualifying sessions and day 3 - the race. A lot of rides, in the their debut British ride do not even qualify, so no pressure then!
First practice over with a fastest lap of 1.57 was not good, but by the end of 2nd practice that was down to 1.54. A qualifying time of 1.52 pit Ross in 30th place for the race, not brilliant but there were riders going home that night who had not qualified.
The race itself was absolute mayhem with race favourite Deane Brown cooking his engine on the sighting lap. Ross kept his cool and slowly decreased his lap times. In the later stages moving up to 14th place. James Folkard came past on the last lap but by now Ross's bike was sliding around on shot tyres so he let him go to finish 20th with a fastest lap of 1.51.
Donnington Park 24-26/05/08
The second outing for the British Superbike 125 Championships saw Ross at Donnington Park. Practice did not bode well with a fast crash at Craner Curves. Qualifying saw another crash at Coppice but on a wet track Ross qualified 14th.
Race day and the 125 race was last on the programme. After hanging around all day tyre warmers were and last minute changes to jetting were being made, only to have a BSB Official come and tell us the race was cancelled on safety grounds, due to high winds. Race to be rescheduled for the Mallory Park BSB meeting. See photos from Donnington
Oulton Park 07/06/08
The New Era Club Championships started well, with timed practice over Ross had put it on Pole for the first race. After the first lap Ross led the race for the following seven laps to record his first win of the year.
What made this more remarkable, was when Ross got back to the pit garage he pointed out that his quickshifter had packed up. This alone would have cost one second a lap.
Race two and it was not made clear to the riders until they were in the warm-up area (where refuelling is not allowed), that the race was to be 10 laps. The race itself turned into a two-way scrap between Ross and Sam Hornsey. Ross was obviously feeling the effects of not having a working quickshifter and Sam Hornsey won by just 2.44 seconds.
Mallory Park 15/06/08
So to Mallory Park for the East Midlands Racing Association Championships. Once again after timed practice, Ross was fastest and on Pole position for the race.
After an average start, Ross got past David Renz and got his head down to catch the leader John Lea. At the chequered flag John Lea took the win with Ross in second just 1.9 seconds behind. At least Ross was going into Race 2 with the fastest lap of Race 1 (57.3) to his credit.
Race 2 was a real duel between Ross and John Lea. The lead was swapped several times in the race, but it was all down to the last lap. At Edwina's Chicane Ross was just in front but on the run to the Hairpin they were neck and neck. Ross had the line into Bus Stop and John had nowhere to go, crashing without injury to leave Ross the clear winner by 53 seconds and the fastest lap of 57.5 The gap from 1st to 2nd was the biggest seen at Mallory Park for many years.
Mallory Park 27-29/06/08
The British Superbike Championships at Mallory Park is where fate decreed we would have our "nightmare" round. First practice was dry and all was well with Ross until he tipped off at Edwina's Chicane. Second practice saw a slightly scuffed bike and rider out in the wet to be a not too shoddy 12th place.
Saturday qualifying and there was definitely something wrong with the bike, Ross finishing Q1 in 29th place. The bike was checked over, but the problem was made obvious in second qualifying when the crank seized. Gary Dawson at REPLICAST RACING lent us a crank in crankcases, and with not a little help from Dave, Gary's technician and a lot of midnight oil we finally had a bike for race day.
The problem Ross faced now was a lack of practice due to the crash and poor qualifying (32). From the eighth row it is a near impossible task to come away with one point in the championship and Ross pulled in halfway through the race, deciding to cut his losses and say goodbye to our "nightmare" race meeting.
Mallory Park 06/07/08
Round Four of the EMRA Championships saw a wet couple of races. Race One saw John Lea win convincingly from Daniel Bursnoll with Danny Smith third and Ross fourth.
Race Two was another wet race and once again John Lea took the win with Ross in fifth place. Overall Ross has maintained his grip on the championship, leading John Lea by 14 points.
Mallory Park 27/07/08
Because there was a 4 week gap between the EMRA and new ERA race meetings, we decided to do the Thundersports GB meeting. The GP3 race (125) had three regular British Championship riders and a grid of 19 Honda 125's. Warm-up went well with Ross fourth fastest. Qualifying was a different story however as after two laps the gearbox sprocket came adrift. This left Ross on the fourth row in 14th place.
The 20 lap race got underway and within 4 laps Ross was in eighth place. A three-way battle between Ross, Adam Dudley and Sam Burman saw Adam Dudley drop it at the hairpin. Ross eventually got past Sam Burman and this put him in 5th place. However Ben McConachie retired, and the leader James Lodge with a massive lead and only 2 laps to go crashed at Edwina's. This left Ross in 3rd place where he finished the race.
Considering his grid position, temperatures in the 30's and a 20 lap race, Ross was well pleased with his podium finish. It must be said that Thundersport GB run an excellent race meeting.
This race along with most of the race programme can be seen on Motors TV on 11/08/08 at 7pm.
Donnington Park 09-10/08/08
The New ERA Club Championships and Honda Superclub Championships at Donnington Park were both held on the shorter 1.9 mile circuit.
A dry qualifying saw Ross with second place on the grid with a fastest lap of 1min 21 secs. The first of Saturdays Club Championship 8-lap races was held in a downpour that saw Donningtons track surface turned into a skidpan. Of the fifteen 125's that started, seven fell off. With this kind of carnage going on Ross decided to settle for a fourth place. The second race was still quite damp and so Ross elected not to ride as the weather on Sunday was going to be dryer.
Sundays meeting (Honda Superclub Championships) was certainly dryer but the wind had got up overnight and initially caused slower lap times. Ross qualified 5th to put him on second row of the grid. Afer making a poor start, Ross was soon battling his way up to the leaders. Unfortunately he caught Josh Eversfield faster than he thought and touched Josh's rear wheel going into Craner Curves. Ross was uninjured but the bike was decidedly second hand, you never have a slow crash down Craner. The only consolation was he got second fastest time of the race with 1min 20. Photos from the HSC meet
600cc bike try-out race
To finish on a brighter note, Ross will trying a 600cc bike at Donnington Park on 19th August. Come along and see how he goes, Pop into the Paddock and say hello. Any Race Teams looking for a rider with potential for the 2009 season need to look no further.
Mallory Park 31/08/08
The penultimate round of the EMRA Championships and Ross has a slender lead over John Lea of 14 points. A dry qualifying session saw Ross put in a lap of 58.041 to give him pole position for race 1.
The weather turned after qualifying and it was wet tyres for everyone. A not too bad start by Ross's standards and he was fourth around Gerards, however going into Edwinas Chicane he took two more riders, putting him in second place. John Lea had made a good start and was leading by over 4 seconds but Ross started putting in fastest laps to peg John back to just over 3 seconds.
On lap 6 John Lea highsided at Edwinas leaving Ross's main protagonist for the Championship out of the race. Ross saw Johns bike by the side of the track and knew he had a good lead over second place rider Adam Robinson. Ross cruised home to an easy win of over 11 seconds.
Race 2 was still wet. After John Lea had crashed on lap 1 and Adam Robinson on lap 5, it was down to Tom Weedon in first place and Ross in second. Ross did a brilliant pass on Tom going into Edwinas and went on to win the race. Unfortunately, he passed under a yellow flag incurring a 10 second penalty thus giving Tom Weedon the win and demoting Ross to fourth place.
After the first race, Ross received The Allan Tolton Trophy for winning the first 125 race. Ross will be presented with this trophy officially at the EMRA Dinner and Awards evening on 8/11/08 at Sketchley Grange, Hinkley, Leicestershire.
Brands Hatch 14/09/08
Ross had never raced at the Brands Hatch circuit in Kent previously, so a decision was made to enter
The New ERA Club Championship meet held on the 'Indy' circuit.
In qualifying we made the right choice with the gearing and Ross came in third on the grid.
In the first race, and with Ross having only done a total of nine laps of the circuit in practice, he was in second place with two laps to go. Unfortunately, on a track that is almost totally right turn based his tyre started to slide. Neil Durham managed to get past on the last lap leaving Ross to finish in third with Simon Low the winner.
Race two and Ross made his customary poor start but at the end of the first lap he was up to fifth place. With four laps to go he had moved up to second place, with a combination of hard riding and a few unorthodox racing lines. Simon Low had charged away at the front with at least a three second gap to Ross. At the chequered flag Ross was only 1.8 seconds behind.
Second place on your first visit to Brands Hatch is not to be sniffed at and Ross did make the fastest lap of 52.78.
Oulton Park 20/09/08
Because of the break between Brands Hatch and the final E.M.R.A round, we
decided to do a North Gloucestershire Club meeting at Oulton Park. Unlike
most other clubs that run a timed practice session, N.G. have untimed practice
and a qualifying race. This means that it does not matter how fast you are in
practice, if you are not in the Championship you start at the back of the grid!
In the qualifying race, Ross made a poor start and spent the whole of the race
playing catch-up, eventually finishing in tenth place.
The final took place four hours later at 5.30pm with the organisers running out
of time. The race was red flagged after a couple of laps and the grid formed up
for a restart.
Ross got a better start this time but was shunted onto the grass going onto the
Avenue, losing around ten places. Nothing left to do but get the head down and
catch those places back.
After three laps Ross was back up to eighth place - only to see the red flag
come out again! The reason for the second red flag? They stopped the race
because they had run out of time. With countback to the previous lap this put
Ross in ninth place.
We finally got back home at ten to eight that evening, so what time the people
involved in the two races after the 125cc race got away is anybodies guess.
If anyone from North Gloucestershire reads this report, please take on board a
little constructive criticism: for 2009 timed practice and grid positions
allocated on these times, not championship positions. Welcome to the 21st
century.
End of 2008 Season
So thats the season over and done with, and what a brilliant season it was.
We asked Ross at the end of the 2007 season if he wanted to move on, he said no because he had unfinished business in the 125 class. This is not a brash or boastful statement as anyone who knows Ross will tell you he is not one to blow his own trumpet. Nevertheless he had a point to prove and he has proven it rather well. With race wins at Oulton Park amd Mallory Park plus the icing on the cake, the E.M.R.A. 125cc Championship he has left no one in any doubt that he can race a 125!
However Ross is now approaching 6' 3" and 11 stone so it is time to move on. Next year we will be doing as many rounds of the
British 600 Superstock Championships as we can and also selected club meetings. Ross has already tested the bike he will be racing and is very pleased.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everybody who has helped and encouraged us this year (you know who you are) and if you are attending B.S. meetings in 2009, then pop by and say hello, we might even rustle you up a cuppa if we not too busy.
Ross is still looking for sponsors for the 2009 season and if you or your company can help in any way it would be very much appreciated. Every round of the 600 Superstock races will be televised so it is a perfect opportunity to get a higher profile for your company or product. If you can help in anyway contact me,
Norman Humphries on 0121 477 6077, mobile 07812 926761 or sponsors@ross67racing.co.uk.
Finally thanks to everyone who has visited the website this season and hopefully it will be bigger and more informative in the coming season.
It only leaves me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Shiny Side Up New Year!