Castlerock’s Marty Nutt enjoyed a superb weekend of racing at Snetterton, where he was competing in the third round of the Ducati 848 Challenge, and came away with a first and a second place to make it six rostrums form the six races held so far.
 
The weekend got off to the perfect start for Marty when he took a superb pole position by two tenths of a second from Championship leader Jonathan Railton and Saturday’s 10-lap race saw that form continue. With glorious weather at the Norfolk venue, an excellent start saw Marty grab the holeshot and he was never headed, winning the race in dominant fashion. Lapping consistently half a second a lap quicker than anyone else, he continued to extend his lead and when it reached 4.5s he was able to ease off in the closing stages to deservedly take his first win of the season.
 
Sunday’s race saw the same two riders battle it out and at two thirds race distance it looked like Marty was going to pull away and take the double. However, just as the race entered its closing stages, he began to suffer with arm pump and it meant Railton was able to close the gap and move ahead with just two laps remaining. The Kings Lynn rider, who’d earlier suffered a spill in the Superstock 1000cc Championship race, was able to hold on and eventually took the win from Marty by just over half a second.
 
The results mean that there’s still 28 points between the pair with Railton now on 145 points and Marty remaining in second on 117.
 
Speaking later, a delighted Marty said; “Overall, I’m really pleased with how the weekend’s gone and the only downside is that I haven’t been able to take any points off Jonathan. Saturday’s race went faultlessly and I couldn’t believe how good a start I made as that hasn’t happened for a while! As soon as I hit the front, I just concentrated on staying smooth and the gap to second continued to increase. Jonathan worked his way up to second by the end but it couldn’t have been a better start for me.”
 
“I felt really confident for the second race but at around two thirds distance I started to suffer from arm pump, something that hasn’t happened to me for years, and I had to start riding defensively. I’d tried to pull away whilst I was leading but he stuck with me and there wasn’t much I could do to stop him coming by. Fair play to him though, he picked himself up after his earlier crash but it’s just a shame we both took 45 points from the weekend. I was really hoping to start making inroads into his lead but there’s still ten races to go and we’re still right in there.”
 
The next round sees Marty head back to Brands Hatch for two more races with the meeting taking place on July 19-21.
 
Picture by Glynne Lewis.