Cal Cooper produced a solid display of riding at rounds seven and eight of the British 450 motorcycling racing championship at Snetterton.
In doing so, the recently-turned 16 year old from West Craig, Lezayre, increased his lead at the halfway stage in the series to 82 points.
Riding the JDF Racing prepared Italian twin, Cal scored a win and two thirds but also posted a DNF when he went down heavily at the hairpin at the end of the Montreal corner on Saturday afternoon.
In typical 450 championship fashion, Cal was one of four riders trying to fit into a space that was only able to accommodate one of them, and he came off worst – as well as being covered in tyre marks. He had the consolation, however, of setting the fastest lap.
A fraction off pole in qualifying in very damp conditions, competition was also thwarted by a mixed bag of weather, as it was in Friday’s pre-race testing, where Cooper was off twice, the second incident seeing him high-sided after going out on the wrong suspension settings after tyres were repeatedly changed to cope with track conditions.
The Italian twin was also off song a little and refused to pull top down the very long Bentley Straight in the final race on Sunday and Cooper, who set a blistering pace at the front, was finally reeled in and had to settle for third with just 0.27 covering the top three.
