COUNTY Durham motorcycle racer Chrissy Rouse was denied his best finish of the season when he crashed out of last weekend’s Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship race at Knockhill.

The 20-year-old Newcastle University student from Burnopfield slid off his CECS/Mission Racing BMW on the fifth lap of the race while he was pushing for a podium position at the Scottish track.

Rouse had been due to start from ninth on the grid for the 24-lap race, but was promoted up to eighth after another rider was excluded. He made a strong start, moving up to seventh on the opening lap. Two laps later, he passed veteran Michael Rutter to take sixth and then overtook Michael Robertson for fifth.

But, with the third and fourth place runners in sight, his hopes were dashed when he crashed out, his bike cartwheeling over the air fence and narrowly missing a marshal.

Two of the region’s other riders in the race both ended up in the points. Prudhoe’s Barry Teasdale brought his Bob Henderson Racing and GreenChem-sponsored BMW home in a brilliant sixth place, while Hutton Rudby rider Neil Bainbridge battled to his first points of the season in 14th place aboard his Kevin Liddle Motorsport and Hare Bulk Haulage-backed Kawasaki.

All riders will be back in action next weekend when the series heads to Snetterton, in Norfolk, for round six of the series.

THE Redcar SG Petch Bears speedway team contested their home Premier League match against Sheffield Tigers last week following a 40-50 away defeat the previous night.

The Bears had to use two guest riders as Jonas B Anderson and Simon Nielsen were both riding for their respective Danish teams.

Heat one saw a fine win for the Tigers’ Simon Stead, with Bears’ Lasse Bjerre second and ex-Bear Matej Kus, guesting for the Tigers, in third place. Heat two was a 5-1 for the Tigers with a first and second for ex-Grand Prix road racer Arthur Sissis and Nathan Greaves. Bears’ Hugh Skidmore won heat three, with new German rider Tobias Busch, making his home debut, in third place to make the scoreline 7-11.

It was another 4-2 for the Bears in heat four with a win for David Bellego and Lee Payne in third before Stead had another win for the Tigers in heat five to stretch their lead to six points. Bears captain Bjerre won the next heat, with guest rider and ex-Bear Carl Wilkinson in third to reduce the deficit to 16-20. However, a 4-2 for the Tigers in the next heat restored their lead to six points.

Wilkinson won heat eight, with Kus in third to split the points, before heat nine saw a brilliant win for Skidmore, with Busch in second to score 5-1. With the scoreline now 26-28, another win for Bjerre in heat 10 levelled the score at 30-30. Bellego had a great battle with Stead to win heat 11, with team-mate Simon Lambert in third to give the home team a slender two-point lead going into the closing heats.

In heats 12 and 13, the points were again split with wins for Sissis and Howarth, who snatched the lead on the last lap. Skidmore was second in heat 12, with Bjerre second in heat 13 to leave the scoreline at 40-38 to the Bears. In the penultimate heat 14, Sissis won a hard-fought battle with Busch in second.

This levelled the scores at 42-42, meaning the home side required at least a 4-2 in the final heat to clinch the match. But, although Bellego had a hard-fought win, the points were split with Stead in second and Howarth third for a 45-45 draw.

Bellego was the top points-scorer of the match on 12.

FOLLOWING lengthy considerations, the Roger Albert Clark Rally Motor Club Ltd has taken the decision not to organise an alternative event in November.

The popular Northern-based event, organised to replicate the demanding RAC rallies of yesteryear, ran from 2004 using many stages in and around the region, including the Dalby, Hamsterley and Kielder forest complexes, but struggled to attract enough entries to make it financially viable and was cancelled last year.

Organisers had hoped to resurrect it this year, but it was important that the club did not again receive insufficient entries and have to cancel the event again. The cancellation of the 2015 event cost £16,000 and the club needed time to consolidate its finances, not only for the championships and event it is promoting in 2016, but also for the future in 2017 and beyond.

As a result, work for the 2017 Roger Albert Clark Rally is in hand and it is planned that it will become a biennial event. The date has been provisionally scheduled for November 9-12 next year and the event would then run again in 2019.

Whereas the RAC Rally has only been for historic, two-wheel drive cars in the past, it is the intention to open the event to all vehicle types and it will be available on both subjective route notes and maps.

To keep up to date with Roger Albert Clark Rally Motor Club news, visit the new club website at racrally.org, where you can become a club member for £15 annually.

NORTHALLERTON co-driver Ian Windress was in action alongside Ollie Mellors in last weekend’s RSAC Scottish Rally, where the Millington Proton pairing ended up 24th overall and eighth in class on the Dumfries-based British Rally Championship round.

However, continuing their traumatic season, Ripon driver Matthew Robinson and co-driver Sam Collis were out of luck as they retired their Fiat on SS4.