Ivan Lintin enjoyed one of his best career victories to date on Sunday when he won the highly prestigious International Gold Cup race at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough, the Taylor Lindsey Racing rider coming home ahead of multiple TT winner John McGuinness.
 
Indeed, Bardney-based Lintin was in imperious form around the 2.43-mile woodland circuit all weekend and won six races from seven starts, also claiming the David Jefferies Cup and Lee Pullan Trophy. In addition, he claimed a new lap record in the Supertwins class and set new personal bests on his 1000cc and 600cc Taylor Lindsey Racing Honda’s, his time of 1m45.385s on the former making him the fourth fastest rider ever around the circuit.
 
The Gold Cup victory, his first International victory on a 1000cc machine, came in Sunday’s final race and he was never headed from the moment the lights turned green. Completing the first lap half a second clear of McGuinness, Ivan lapped consistently quicker than his rival and was able to control the race from the front to take a famous win and follow in the footsteps of illustrious names like Barry Sheene, Carl Fogarty, Giacomo Agostini, Phil Read, Geoff Duke, David Jefferies and fellow Lincolnshire riders Guy Martin and Roger Marshall, all previous winners of the trophy.
 
The 29-year old had already laid down two markers with a victory in each of the Superbike races held on Saturday and Sunday, the latter in particular impressive as he saw off the close attentions of Lee Johnston with the aforementioned new personal best lap.
 
Johnston proved to be Ivan’s main rival in the Supersport 600cc class and the duo had close battles in each of the two eight lap races. Johnston led for five laps in Saturday’s race before Ivan overhauled him at the start of the sixth with a surprise move along the start and finish straight and, with a new personal best lap of 1m46.997s, just 0.2s outside the lap record, he eventually ran out victor by three seconds. Sunday’s race was closer still but, having led from the start, Johnston squeezed by Ivan with less than half a lap to go and it proved to be his only defeat of an otherwise perfect weekend.
 
His other race victories came in the two Supertwins races on the Tigcraft Kawasaki, the first seeing him lead from start to finish and also set a new lap record of 1m49.944s,the first sub-1m50s lap in the class. Sunday’s encounter saw him occupy third place in the early stages but once he hit the front on lap four, he was able to pull clear for yet another high class victory.
 
Ivan Lintin: “I can’t really fault the weekend at all and to cap it off with victory in the Gold Cup race, my first International race win on a 1000cc machine, is brilliant. When you look at some of the names on the trophy, I’m in some high class company and whilst I wouldn’t put myself in the same category with some of those riders, it’s nice to have got the better of people like John McGuinness and Bruce Anstey, two road racing legends, today. My plan was to get my head down for the first two to three laps to break away from John and it worked a treat. Once I’d got a nice gap, I was able to ease off slightly and control the race from the front.”
 
“It would have been nice to have taken seven wins from seven starts but I just ran a little bit wide on the exit of Mountside Hairpin on the final lap of Sunday's 600cc race and the bike bogged down a bit, which allowed Lee to edge ahead going into the jumps. There was no time to retaliate but, like I say, I can’t complain one bit about the weekend. All three bikes were impeccable and to end the year with a weekend like this, with race wins and personal bests in all three classes is superb. It’s been a fantastic year for me and I’ve been able to make good progress across the classes and climb further up the results sheets so massive, massive thanks to everyone at Taylor Lindsey Racing, McKinstry Racing, Tigcraft Kawasaki and all of my other sponsors for making it all possible. Roll on 2015!”
 
Photo - Mark Walters.