HALESOWEN riders Jamieson Blain and Nick Clayton posted strong performances in last Sunday's Dudley Grand Prix meeting at the Halesowen velodrome.

Under-16 competitor Blain outwitting his seniors in the support events, and academy rider Clayton showed his potential in a national standard field in the A-stream races.

Both riders were unfortunate to be involved a mass pile-up in the prestige race of the day, the Billy Jones Memorial 10-mile. They were taken to hospital along with three other riders. Both were later released, Clayton with possible mild concussion, and Blain having received stitches to facial injuries.

Earlier Blain had dominated the support events along with fellow local under-16 Jamie Crump, finishing second to Crump in the opening 15-lap scratch race, third, again to Crump and local veteran Ian Cooper in the elimination event, and third to Crump in the points race. In the course-des-primes, where riders compete for lap prizes each time round the track, Crump and Blain staged a 15-lap escape to take a clean sweep of all the prizes.

In the A-stream events, former Halesowen rider Jacob Tipper won the toughest event of the day, the 32-lap points race, from Morvelo's Michael Mottram, and finished second in the 15-lap scratch. Clayton, meanwhile, showed his quality with fourth in the elimination, sixth in the scratch and sixth in the points race.

With the Billy Jones Memorial cancelled due to the crash, the riders jointly agreed that prize money should be paid into a fund set up on behalf of Wolverhampton junior racer Joe Guy, who was killed recently in a traffic accident. A minute's silence in Guy's memory was held before racing started.

Elsewhere, the Halesowen Academy rider Jack Stanton-Warren was again within a whisker of his first win in a national standard event, finishing third at the Ham Hill road race near Yeovil. Stanton-Warren was one of a group of three who staged a move 25 miles from the finish of the 80-mile race, working their way through earlier escapees to contest the finish where he was pipped for second by Raleigh professional Tristan Robbins.