Held Race News: Podium for Tom Weeden at Olivers Mount

Tom Weeden Olivers Mount Cock o’ the North 2015

Tom Weeden was back in action last weekend at the Olivers Mount Cock o’ the North road races in Scarborough. After a successful week at the North West 200 back in May, Weeden couldn’t wait to get back on the bike and back to the Olivers Mount circuit. Unfortunately the meeting had to be reduced to one day due to an issue with the Scarborough council; despite this the team still made the long journey up in order to get some track time before the Manx GP in August.

Tom Weeden: 3rd behind Lee Johnston and Dean Harrison

The rain came down heavily on Sunday morning, much to Tom’s delight after his success in wet conditions at the Spring Cup. After the first few groups had gone out for morning practice the rain started to come down too hard to continue. The organisers decided to call a delay of an hour for the rain to pass with Weeden’s 600 session being the first back on track. 

As forecasted the rain died down after an hour and Tom was out for the 3 laps of practice he would get to reacquaint himself with both the bike and the track before qualifying. Weeden took it easy in the wet conditions, short shifting and not taking any risks and was pleasantly surprised to see himself 4th fastest on the timesheets.

The track had begun to dry for qualifying and it would all be down to tyre choice. The nature of the Olivers Mount circuit meant parts of the track would be dry but the parts under the trees would still be wet. After a lot of nail biting and deliberation on what tyres to go for, Tom decided to go for an intermediate in the front and a heavily worn wet rear that he didn’t mind destroying which had been saved for a moment exactly like this. 

The call proved to be perfect with Tom taking two laps to get used to the tricky conditions without using up too much of the rear tyre on the dry parts. Then on the 4th and final lap Tom found himself a bit of space on track and put a quick lap in fast enough for 3rd position on the grid, 2.2 seconds faster than 4th position and only 1 second off of pole. 

The track had mostly dried up for the first 600cc race, full dry tyres being the choice for all on the grid. Tom’s once trademark flying starts have been something he’s been missing this year so he was hoping to at least consolidate third position into turn 1 front the front row. Unfortunately this didn’t happen, Weeden dropt to 7th into turn 1 after getting beaten up a bit off the line. He moved into 6th halfway through the lap but the front pack had begun to pull away. At the end of the first lap the red flags came out due to an incident that needed clearing, giving Tom another chance to sort his start out. 

The start was better in the rerun but still far from perfect, Weeden was in 6th but this time right on the tail of the chasing pack. On lap 2 he moved into 5th when a rider in front crashed causing Tom to take evasive action. The race continued and Weeden found himself behind Daley Mathison trying everything to find a way past. On the last lap Daley showed Tom half a gap at the end of the back straight and he didn’t need asking twice to come through into 4th. With half a lap to go Ivan Lintin had an off in front of Tom leaving him to take 3rd position. 

This boded well for the remainder of the meeting in which Tom had one more 600 race and then the main Cock o’ the North race. Unfortunately though an incident in which a sidecar spilt oil over a large proportion of the track caused a lengthy delay. Despite even getting the fire brigade to come and clean the circuit it was deemed too unsafe to continue due to the amount of oil covering the circuit. On a road circuit with very limited run off rider safety has to paramount and we respect the unfortunate decision to have to call an early end to an already shortened meeting. 

Looking at the positives Weeden can go to the Manx GP with himself and his bike in one piece and on the back of another great podium result at Olivers Mount. 

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Held wearer Tom Weeden Oliver’s Mount Gold Cup

Held wearer Tom Weeden signed off his debut road racing season in fine form at the Oliver’s Mount Gold Cup road races last weekend. The 19 year old was certainly in good company with most of the big TT names attending; Tom was up against the likes of John Mcguinness, Michael and William Dunlop, Guy Martin and Bruce Anstey to name a few. Tom entered the 3 races and was certainly kept busy jumping between 2 bikes all weekend. 

Weeden: Overtook Michael Dunlop in style

 He was entered in the Supertwin races on the Trickbits FBM Performance Suzuki SV650 and also in both the David Jeffries 600cc class and the Darren Lindsay Trophy on his own Triumph 675. Tom was racing against 1000cc bikes in the Darren Lindsay Trophy but was confident that if it was wet, as the forecast said it would be, then he was in with a good chance of a decent result.

Practice went well on both bikes. In the initial practice sessions Tom went 6th fastest on his Triumph and 3rd fastest on the SV650, this was certainly a confidence boost going into qualifying and into the races. Weeden went 11th fastest in the 600 qualifying session and 13th fastest in the Supertwin session but was confident that if he got off the line well he good push for a decent result from there. 

Tom made a good start in the 1st of the Supertwin races and soon started to make up places. He crossed the line in 8th position at the end of lap 1 and momentarily dropped back to 9th before reclaiming the place back. Tom put some consistent laps together before putting his fastest lap of the race in on the last lap to cross the line in 8th behind Chris Palmer. 

Next up was the Darren Lindsay Trophy for bikes of 600cc and above. Weeden was starting at the back of the grid and so just decided to have fun and treat it as a bit of practice. He made a good start again, however on the first few laps his brakes were not working properly causing him to run wide at the hairpins. He still managed to pull the bike home in 17th place after 8 laps around the Olivers Mount road circuit but was adamant he should have finished higher if it wasn’t for the brake issue. 

In the David Jeffries Cup Tom finished 8th in both the Heat race and the first leg, but had sorted out the brake problem and was confident that he could produce a good finish in the second leg on Sunday. 

Tom only completed 1 of the two available practice sessions on Sunday morning in order to save the only set of wet tyres the team had for the races. He completed 2 laps on his Triumph and went 9th fastest and then posted the fastest time in the Supertwin session after pulling in after only 3 laps. This boosted Tom’s confidence and he knew that if it was wet for the races then he was in for a good chance of a decent result. 

After 1 lap of the 2nd leg of the Darren Lindsay Trophy the rain started to come down whilst all the riders were on dry tyres. Tom pulled in hoping to be allowed to change to wets and that the race would be restarted. The race was then halted before half distance which meant a full race restart would be made. A lot of the riders felt it was a passing shower and went for intermediate tyres or drys for the restart, Tom however decided to risk it and kept the wet tyres on hoping it would rain again otherwise he would chew up his only set of wets. From the very back on the grid Tom had nothing to lose and everything to gain and decided to go for it for the 3 lap restart. 

After 1 lap Tom had moved up into 10th. Then on the second lap the rain came down and Tom decided to gas it and make up as many places as possible. Weeden found himself in 5th going into the last lap and decided to just keep his head down and stay focused in the difficult conditions. 

On the last half of the lap he caught up with the TT stars on their 1000cc bikes and snapped up the opportunity to overtake such high profile names. Tom moved up into 2nd place, overtaking Michael Dunlop around the outside into one of the hairpins and was ecstatic as he crossed the line to take 2nd from very last on the grid. 

Tom was next out for the second leg of the David Jeffries 600 Cup. From 12th on the grid, Tom made good progress on the first lap and crossed the line in 9th position. On lap 3 Weeden moved into 8th position and set his sights on the next rider in front of him. On the fifth lap he moved into 7th place and put in some fast laps to gap the riders behind. Tom crossed the line in 7th and then was straight back out in the next race on his Supertwin bike. 

The last Supertwin race had to be restarted twice after two incidents occurred on the track. But once they got away Tom made a great start and slotted into 4th place on lap 1. The rider in front narrowly avoided highsiding in front of Tom and he had to quickly make avoiding action as he slotted up into 3rd place. He remained there for the remainder of the race to take another top 3 finish and end the season on a high. 

Tom left the Oliver’s Mount road circuit over the moon with the results he had achieved and he can’t wait to return next year.





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