Race report: St. Mary’s Trophy Part 2 – Revival 2021
Bill Shepherd made up for his RAC TT Celebration disappointment by winning the second instalment of the St. Mary’s Trophy presented by Motul aboard his crowd-pleasing Ford Thunderbird. In doing so, he and team-mate Romain ‘Le Cowboy’ Dumas claimed the overall win on aggregate.
Saturday at the Revival saw Dumas finish 6.9 seconds ahead of Austin A40 pedaller Andrew Jordan. This meant his father Mike Jordan had to place ahead of Shepherd by seven seconds or more to claim outright honours. He looked a good bet to do so, too, because he was first to hook up off the line from the front row. However, he was behind fellow Austin man Matt Manderson and Jaguar star Grant Williams by the time they arrived at Madgwick for the first time.
Shepherd muscled his way past Jordan on the third lap of the 25-minute encounter. As such, he had the aggregate win in the bag so long as the positions remained static. However, the historics veteran clearly wanted to win on the road, too, and the V8 Ford specialist picked off his rivals one by one. Williams assumed the lead four laps in, only for the safety car to emerge after Tom Sharp’s BMW 700 smote the tyre barrier at Madgwick after the car’s rear suspension collapsed. On the restart, there was no stopping Shepherd who made it past Grant on the Lavant straight with eight minutes left to run.
The Welshman didn’t give up without a fight, though, but the Thunderbird’s power advantage over the Jaguar Mk1 showed in a straight line. Shepherd came home a convincing winner, with Grant second and Richard Meaden a superb third following a bravura display in the Alfa Romeo Giulietta Ti raced yesterday by Emanuele Pirro. The Jordan family salvaged second place on aggregate, with Meaden/Pirro third.
Bill Shepherd
St Mary's Trophy
Revival
Revival 2021
Race Report
