By Carly Rathmell
June 8 2004

19-year-old Manchester based rider Adam Jenkinson still leads the R6 Cup championship by three points after finishing in a very creditable seventh place at the super fast circuit of Thruxton on Sunday, 6th of June.

picture by Chris Martin @ www.brakingzone.com

All the riders had a five-week break, as they missed going to Mondello Park in Ireland a few weeks ago. Instead they will have a support race at the British Grand Prix at Donington Park in July. Jenkinson, who qualified eleventh for the race at Thruxton, was keen to get to grips with the Hampshire track and gain some valuable points.

Jenkinson, a former Mini Moto Champion, has moved up to this ultra competitive class in the hopes of winning the prestigious prize at the end of the year - the chance to ride for Rob McElnea in the full works Virgin Yamaha British Superbike team. Jenkinson, who has won three of the four rounds, was on a mission to master the track he had never seen before.

Thruxton always provides very close fought out racing, and the R6 Cup race was no different. With all riders being on identical R6 Yamahas, it was vital to get a good start to allow passing manoeuvres throughout the race. As the lights turned green, Jenkinson managed to gain two places and was up to ninth, leaving himself a lot of work to do over the next eleven laps. The race had been cut short due to an earlier accident in the British Superbike race and, instead of the originally planned fifteen laps, it was demoted to a twelve-lap race.

It was an eight way battle for the majority of the race, and Jenkinson was tucked in at the back of the front-runners. He soon began to make his mark and make progress through the field, passing James Hillier and Guy Sanders. He was sitting comfortably in sixth by the end of lap nine, but Hillier dived underneath on lap ten and pushed Adam back down to seventh.

Still fighting, Jenkinson was determined to catch sixth placed man Mark Pollock, who only had a 0.1 advantage over Jenkinson as they crossed the finish line. Adam was slightly dejected, saying, “It’s the first time I’ve ever been to this track and I struggled to get the results that I wanted. It was a really close race and there was only three seconds separating the top eight riders. I’m looking forward to Brands Hatch in a few weeks time and will be aiming to extend my championship lead further there. We’re allowed to drop our two worst rounds at the end of the season, so hopefully I can improve on my results from here and drop this one.”

Race result
1 Wren, 16:47.385
2 Glynn, 16:48.196
3 Bridewell, 16:48.484
4 Bray, 16:48.618
5 Hillier, 16:48.936
6 Pollock, 16:50.496
7 Jenkinson, 16:50.595
8 Sanders, 16:50.609
9 Newell, 17:02.799
10 McFeeley, 17:03.730

Championship standings
1 Adam Jenkinson, 84
2 Richard Wren, 81
3 Kiel Bryce, 58*
= James Hillier, 58
5 Ollie Bridewell, 54
6 Gareth Glynn, 48
7 Jon Boy Lee, 44
8 Conor Cummins, 39

* Now competing in British Superbikes