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Last Updated: Nov 28th, 2010 - 10:22:29 |
Mancunian Buccaneer Kyle Howarth just failed in his bid to go one better than last year in the British U18 championship at Somerset on Friday.
Howarth looking to improve on that runners-up spot in 2009 had to eventually settle for the bronze medal as he was beaten by Poole-based youngster Brendan Johnson and the diminutive Joe Jacobs.
Isle of Wight rider Johnson, competing for the final time in this class, made the most of the qualifying system. He scored 10 points in his five rides, one less than Howarth and two behind automatic finalists Joe Jacobs and Tom Perry.
But Johnson and Howarth, the latter a faller whilst leading in his third ride, took full advantage of the repercharge semi-final to join Jacobs and Perry in the final, at the expense of the impressive Jake Knight and stylish Jason Garrity.
Then, off the same gate 2 as he had won the semi-final Johnson, who suffered life-threatening injuries last season, made a super start and kept Howarth and the hard-pressing Jacobs at bay. Jacobs was able to get by Howarth to snatch the runners-up spot admitting afterwards that he "had probably made a mistake in the choice of gates as he didn't want to get clamped on at the first turn".
Johnson was delighted with his victory claiming "I haven't been in the best of form this season so to win this is a great boost for me. I was suffering from carburettor problems early on but I kept plugging away and it came right for me in the end."
Howarth whilst disappointed not to have struck gold looked objectively at his achievement, "I thought that I had blown my chances when I tried to get off the slick stuff in the third ride only to be thrown off by the deeper dirt but I went on to make the rostrum. Of course I would have loved to have done better than last year, that was my aim, but hey I made the rostrum in the end and so it can't be all that bad".
Bournemouth's other competitor, John Resch had a fairly productive evening scoring 7 points from his five heats, including an impressive heat 15 win from the back.
Full Result - 1.B.Johnson 10+3+3; 2.J.Jacobs 2+2; 3. K.Howarth 11+2+1; 4. T.Perry 12+0; 5. J.Knight 10+1; 6.J.Garrity 11+0; 7. A.Morris 9; 8. R.Franklin 9; 9. J.Resch 7; 10. J.Sarjeant 6; 11. D.Ritchings 6; 12.Freemantle 5; 13. O.Rayson 5; 14. S.Hazelden 4; 15. T.Stokes 2; 16. D.L'Anson 1, Reserves D.Barrett 0; A.Kirby 0
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