Tom Grimshaw - School’s out, time to ride
By TMX Archives on 28th Jun 17
My school exams are complete and I dont want to talk about it anymore.
Dad was as relieved as I was because he was under orders to back off while I was going through this period.
With limited races, bike and gym time I felt I was going to be on the back foot for a while until I started finding my routine again.
We received a nice call from the ACU asking us if we would like to race the Junior World Championships held in Estonia on 125cc.
We had a think about it and whilse Roland at Hardcore Racing had a 125 Yamaha for me to use, it would take a lot of time and effort away from my 250F racing to take part in this event.
This is truly a great experience and I really enjoyed myself when I last raced this event in 2015.
I wish the best of luck to the team and riders that have chosen to make this trip as I know you will enjoy it as much as I did.
It was straight into racing with the third round MXY2 at Desertmartin in Northern Ireland.
The long journey was worthwhile as the place is mint.
The day started weirdly as there were several Red flags in MX2 timed training with riders crashing, then in MX1 timed training the session was stopped after a rider got hurt on the middle triple section, I hear there were a few complaints about this section as the approach and take off is blind and it's a big jump.
So the organisers altered it to make it safer which I was pleased about. (Funny as this section stayed in a few weeks earlier for the British Youth Nationals)
I qualified fourth which was Okay but suffered lots with arm pump.
Two laps was the maximum I could do and I thought this will not be good come the races.
So we were on the RSS hot-line and made a few tweaks to the suspension which was a lot better.
I grabbed the race one holeshot and lead until half way until I got passed and finished second.
Race 2 again I got the holeshot but made a mistake to find myself third.
A few laps later I was leading but started to suffer towards the end and slipped back to fourth but that gave me a good second overall and still kept thirdrd in the championship.
We manage to get to the Milk Run on the Wednesday after Ireland as Alfie Smith has been working his magic there on the track layout.
It gave me a chance to test a few things as HGS sent me a new tail pipe plus I got to run my new HAAN factory wheels in.
We then set off for Scotland and Round four British Youth Nationals at Duns.
The track was fast and flowing over the two days of racing with Jed (Etchells), Howard (Wainwright) and myself battling it out over all five motos.
A 2-2-3-2-3 score card that netted me third overall.
I was disappointed in two motos that when I was leading I made some small mistakes that cost me a possible race win.
I am still second in the Championship with Jed closing in on me, but we are not taking enough points out of Howard who is leading the championship with two rounds to go. I will need to roll my sleeves up a little further.
It was my prom night last week and I was all suited and booted for the evening which was great fun as it was held at Batchwood Hall (night club / country club) special thanks goes to Scott Stevens (personal sponsor) for dropping me off at the front door in his Audi A8 Lambo, ‘That's a fast car'.
