Current standings

Rider	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Round 7	Round 8	Round 9	Round 10	Total
Paul Hogan	10+10										20
Simon Tomlinson	9+9										18
James Mead	7+8										15
Martin Ratcliffe	8+7										15
Neil Ronketti	*10+5										15
Paul Ling	6+6										12
Nick Wiles	4+4										8
Paul Little	3+3										6
Charlie Entwhistle	0+0										0
Kevin Burton	0+0										0
Scott Allaway	0+0										0
Katie Morgan	0+0										0
Darren Marshall	0+0										0
Pete Fishwick	0+0										0
Ben Gilbert	0+0										0
Clive Larrett	0+0										0
Nigel Hewitt	0+0										0
Charlie Blackmore	0+0										0

* - Denotes rider played joker in this round

Rounds 1&2 - Oulton park, 15-May-1999

The bands were playing, the dancing girls were out, the red carpet was laid [1], and the sun was even shining as the TZR Tour '99 kicked off at Oulton Park on Saturday, 15th May. The previous day had seen several tour riders attempting to get ahead of the game by attending the official practise day. While nobody was watching I sneaked a stopwatch out and noted that Simon Tomlinson was, not surprisingly, going like the clappers.
Round 1 saw the newly crowned Snetterton lap record holder Paul Hogan showing everyone else the way round, closely pursued by Simon Tomlinson, with both riders hitting lap times well under the two minute mark. James Mead and Martin Ratcliffe had a good scrap for third place, and were seperated at the line by under a second. This battle looks set to go on through the season, and could provide some fireworks along the way. Paul Ling took 5th spot from yours truly, with Nick Wiles and Paul Little rounding things up for the tour riders.
Round 2 was more of a typical TZR round, as firstly Jeff Parrett dumped his NC30 on the warm up lap right in my way, then Simon Ffoulkes locked everything up going into the chicane on the first lap, sending myself and Nick scurrying for the safety of the escape road. Not bad. I hadn't even finished a lap, had been barged off the track twice, and Paul Ling was yards away at the time. Again, Paul and Simon took 1st and 2nd, but this time around James got the better of Martin to take 3rd place. The rest of the placings were exactly the same as round 1, so it looks like a bit of a pattern is emerging from rounds so far.

[1] Well, it was in may garage anyway.

Corruption Scandal

My sources reveal that certain members of this years tour have been heard to comment that their ten quid signing on fee seems to have been used by the tour organiser for the purpose of hiring track side garages this season. This is quite clearly not true. The money has actually been spent on beer and curry.

Quotes from Oulton

Return of The Terminator

Those of you with long memories may well remember Ronnie 'The Terminator' Ross barging his way round race circuits in the 1996 season. Well, it appears that Ronnies mantle has been taken this year by none other than Paul Little. Paul was seen ruthlessly taking out mild mannered Pete Fishwick at an earlier non-tour BMCRC round at Lydden this year. Watch it Paul, or we'll get our big brothers onto you...

Other pretenders to the throne at present are novice sensation Martin Ratcliffe, who fired a warning shot and most of his paintwork across the bows of Charlie 'don't call me Chas' Entwhistle, and, errm, your friendly tour organiser after an altercation with James Mead, also at Lydden. Luckily James has ample momentum to shrug off little challenges like that.

Casualty Department

First rider of the year to make it into the ambulance was Nigel Hewitt, at the Lydden BMCRC round. Nigel was comprehensively LC'd at Chessons, and to add insult to injury was run over too. The result was a broken collarbone, seven ribs, and a stay in hospital. As a result, Nigel will miss the first couple of rounds of the TZR Tour. Get well soon.
However, there is a slim chance that the whole episode was caught on video by Bob Keen. If so, I'll see what I can do about getting it included on this years TZR Tour video as a reminder to us all to keep away from the LCs.

First mechanical casualty of the season goes to Scotty Allaway, whose TZR expired in the first race at Oulton at the weekend. This wasn't a total disaster for our Scott though, as he was able to continue the days racing aboard his RS250 in the open class.

Joker Rounds

I'm still unsure as to which round some of you want to play your jokers, as either you haven't told me, or the rounds you picked weren't actually races we're doing... The guilty parties are:

• Charlie Blackmore
• Charlie Entwhistle
• Paul Hogan
• Paul Ling
• James Mead
• Martin Ratcliffe
• Simon Tomlinson
• Nick Wiles