Local crews and competitors were well to the fore at two separate track meetings over the weekend in Scotland and England.

Ballasalla resident Harry Payne and passenger Mark Wilkes were at the final round of the Formula Sidecar Racing Association (FSRA) championship at the Knockhill track near Dunfermline.

Having already sealed the F2 Cup class at the previous round on the Croft circuit in the northeast of England, Payne and Wilkes had another close tussle in the initial stages with overall F2 champions Lee Crawford and Scott Hardie.

On both men’s first appearance at the circuit, Payne/Wilkes qualified second and followed this up with a brace of second place finishes overall behind Crawford/Hardie, albeit at a considerable distance, winning both cup class races in the process.

Furthermore they set a new lap record for the Cup class of 53.7 seconds on their Kelproperties GP-F2 Yamaha outfit.

The final standings leaves them second overall in the ACU FSRA British F2 Sidecar Championship and a clear first in the Cup having won every single race they finished this year in the class.

In their first off-island foray with their new 890cc KTM-twin powered machine, Dave Molyneux and Dan Sayle contested the BMCRC-MRO Championship meeting on the national course at Donington Park, where they polished up three of the four race wins in the F1 class, winning overall.

They didn’t contest the last race because of slight signs of bike wear and also didn’t want to use up tyres.

Mike Jackson and Jake Sayle (otherwise known as Roberts), finished runner-up in three of the four races for fourth overall on the DMR Suzuki, winning the last race despite racing against 1,000cc F1 machines.

Dave Quirk and Karl Schofield raced hard all weekend and got faster each race with the Ireson Suzuki. Darren Hope and Paul Bumfrey had a good test day on Friday and carried that momentum over to Saturday’s racing where they finished well on the LCR Suzuki, but overheating issues meant they were unable to finish the weekend.

Ryan and Callum Crowe had a disappointing weekend, blowing two engines but setting some fast laps, only a second or so down on Molyneux and Sayle.