THE Melville Club at East Fortune hosted the first two rounds of the Scottish Motorcycle Championship at the weekend, with a busy 28-race programme to complete over the coming months.

The weekend produced some close competitive racing in all classes, with dominant performances all weekend from Haddington’s Paul McClung, who this year has moved up to the Superbike class, racing a BMW 1000RR motorcycle. He qualified in pole position and won all four of his races.

Bruce Birnie, from Montrose, was back at East Fortune after an absence of four years and, as well as being runner-up to McClung three times in Superbikes, was runner-up three times in the Formula 600 class and picked up three fourth places in Scottish Lightweights.

Saturday’s proceedings had been running very smoothly until the afternoon, when track marshals had a huge clearing-up job during the sixth lap of the Junior Post Classics’ race when Simon Payling crashed, uninjured, at Railway.

After the oil leak from his bike had been cleared, the sidecars race was won decisively by Phil Bell and Tony Belsey from the north-east of England.

Saturday’s final Superbike race was brought to an abrupt end while the racers were waiting to start the race when a deer was running around the track.

The race was held over until Sunday morning because of the 6pm curfew.

Special mention went to 12-year-old Franco Bourne, a newcomer to the circuit, who had travelled up from Durham to race in the Formula 125 class. He was the winner of all four of his races, one by a huge margin of 49 seconds, and he left the circuit the winner of the Jim Oliver Memorial Trophy.

Other successful racers who also picked up four wins over the two days were Scott Campbell, who won all four of his Scottish Lightweights races, with Lewis Paterson and Gillian McGaw sharing runner-up and third places.

Kilcreggan’s Adam Lyon won all four of his Formula 600 races, while Jodie Chalk, who qualified pole in Senior Post Classics, also gained four decisive wins.

So too did Jon Dickie in the Pre-injection 600 and 1200 class.

Thanks went to club secretary Diana Dyce and the many volunteers, without whom the racing couldn’t go ahead.

The next race meeting at East Fortune is May 13-14 when the NEMCRC Club from the north-east of England make a welcome return north of the Border.