Round two of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship took place at Thruxton in Hampshire last weekend with more than the usual sense of excitement and urgency than normal because it would be the first meeting of the season to see genuine racing due to the snowed off Brands Hatch round a fortnight ago.
The weather was going to be a factor for this weekend’s meeting with rain and high winds forecast for at least the first couple of days then the possibility of a warmer and drier day for Sunday’s racing.
Airwaves Ducati and Shane Byrne in particular arrived full of hopes and confidence having secured poll in the qualifying for the abandoned qualification at Brands (which still defines the grid for the re-run in May). HM Plant brought Leon Haslam who is clearly desperate to prove his racing credentials having been the country’s favourite runner-up for so long now. His partner at the factory Honda team, LB friend Cal Crutchlow was by contrast in the great position of having far less to prove - it’s only his second year in the top flight although he does have one of the most sought after seats in the paddock.
Another rider in his second year is Tom Sykes on the Rizla Suzuki. Tom is probably the most popular rider in the paddock although that might change if he continues to impress as he did during the second half of last year’s season. His new team mate Atsushi Watanabe will be simply looking forward to riding without the threat of hyperthermia.
So the circus set up it’s tents and team LB arrived with it to document the weekend in our trademark style although I was hoping it would be without the dropping of expensive cameras. Mike was able to cover the practice sessions on Friday and once work finished I high-tailed over there on Friday night.
In my absence Friday’s practice saw some pretty grim weather but some interesting results from the Superbikes. Karl Bomber Harris on the newly set up Team Yamaha R1, Rob McElnea’s transformed Virgin Media team from last year, was to go fastest around the flat and windy circuit that is actually built around a civil airport. However the usual suspects (read Byrne, Haslam and Crutchlow) were all at most only half a second behind him. So the guys had picked up the baton and run with the widely held belief that this is the best domestic series in the World. I imagine that belief has not been lost on Watanabe, who is a double champion in his native Japanese series - it would be very interesting to see how he got on come race day. Practice for him, in what must have been below zero temperatures once wind-chill is factored in, put him some 3.5 seconds behind Harris. Before you think how slow that makes him, just remember he’s never seen the track before. Fancy being 3.3 seconds behind Shakey Byrne first time you do a track day at a strange track?
Not bad I’d say.
Saturday is qualifying day and that means the talking and excuses stop and the riding starts. A decent crowd turned up to watch the day’s action - but why they have to park next to me at 7am and make a right old din doing so is beyond me. Please folks, come on qualifying day - it’s a tenner to get in and the riding is hard and serious. Besides, the paddock is usually open for walkabouts (but on race day you will be charged) and the crowds are less. But please, don’t park next to the green Audi camper-car!
So what happened? Well it was a close result as expected, but there was a turn around in the order for the grid, with Karl Harris demoted (well if you can call 0.6 of a second such a thing) to the head of the second row in 5th. Byrne put the 1098 Ducati on pole and Haslam, Rutter and Crutchlow being at best 0.3 of a second behind him.
Oh and the weather took a turn for the worse with quite a lot of rain in the morning although it didn’t slow the riders down too much. In the supporting classes Glen Richards (who won Superstocks last year) put the newly formed Embassy Racing Triumph 675 on pole for the Fuchs Silkolene Supersport race while his team mate went through his second engine which hampered his efforts to reel in his new partner and long term friend. While it’s nice to see the faith that the Triumph factory put in the new team coming to fruition it was an ominous sign that Steve Brogan put his HM Plant CBR600 RR only 0.3 of a second behind the charismatic triple.
So with the qualifying over and it would appear the worst of the weather past, we adjourned to the bar to mull over a day’s interesting racing. Aside from the inclusion of the 675s, the Supersport grid had all the regulars at the sharp end with Padgetts, Centurion and HM Plant all in the top 5 but the Relentless GSX-R of Ian Lowry could only manage 8th. Brogan incidently put his Superstock GSX-R 1000 on pole for that race, so not a bad day’s work for him.
LB’s Sam Middlemas, riding his Superstock Triumph Daytona 675 put up a gallant fight to qualify 16th which considering he’d never ridden the track before and more importantly was down on power compared to the R6s and CBR600RRs was a great result. In the wet he was running in 9th, but a dry forecast didn’t promise that sort of race performance. Since these are virtually showroom bikes and we all know that in the 2 years since the launch of the 675 the Japanese factories have stepped up their game so the triple is now behind on top end power.
And Thruxton is all about power.
Race day arrived without the usual rattle of rain on the car roof but did come with the usual early birds arriving in the car park, seeking me out and shouting loudly as I sleep.
So come 8.30 Mike and I dragged our tired bones and large collection of camera gear into the press room again to see what the day, Mike’s first BSB race day, had in store.
Pit lane opened mid morning for the public walk around which saw all the main teams putting on a good show and all riders doing their bit to meet as many fans and sign as many pics (soon to be appearing on Ebay I imagine) as possible. One improvement over last year was the increase in glamourous girls with Team Maxxis, the CJ Charity Fund, MAR Racing, Tena For Men and others all bringing several girls to show off. And the biggest improvement was that they were actually pretty girls, and all appeared to be serious about modelling/PR type stuff. So yeah, a difficult day in the office and I’m sure Mike regrets his choice to go snapping in the paddock hehe. He’ll learn.
The programme started with Race 1 of the Bennetts Superbikes and to celebrate the clouds parted and the sun shone through. The grid was it’s usual collection of expensive trick equipment, blokes in leather and girls in lycra. Shakey looked confident on pole with the 1098 warming gently in the spring sunshine. Haslam looked frustrated in 2nd but that feeling would be a prelude it seems, while Rutter was in high spirits having got his beautiful NW200 machine into 3rd. Crutchlow sat patiently in 4th while Harris, after topping the charts for most of the weekend looked full of bulldog determination until he spotted something amiss with the rear of the bike and proceeded to harass the mechanics.
Lights went out and the HM Plant machines took the lead with Haslam letting his demons guide his right hand into the ‘full power, never mind the cold tyres’ setting while Crutchlow tagged onto his team mates’ coat tails for the first few corners. Rutter got a bit swamped and dropped a couple of places while Byrne similarly dropped back from his pole position. Perhaps the 1098 isn’t the easiest to get off the line? But surprise of the day was BSB rookie Adam Jenko Jenkinson on the hitherto ‘also-ran’ SMT Honda Fireblade who was running in 6th.
The first casualty was Harris who had to quit on lap three from a very promising top 5 position and clearly wasn’t a happy bunny as he trundled down pitlane. His weekend would get worse tho, but it would have taken a very brave man to suggest that in the garage as he listened to the bikes scream past while the mechanics tried to sort the ill R1 machine.
Haslam appeared to be racing to the back of the pack over the next few laps as his tyres appeared to tyre. He clearly couldn’t get on the power out of the last chicane with the same aggression as the rest of the pack could and first Byrne then Rutter over took the HM Plant machine on their 1098 Ducatis. Crutchlow though suffered no similar problems and was holding the lead despite the noisy and threatening Ducati charge behind him. Further down the field Sykes had the drop on Camier and and hard riding James Ellison, these three were scrapping all race and only a cigarette paper separated them to the very end.
Poor Jenko was struck with an engine blow out on lap 8 which ruined his very promising start to the season and eventually the Ducati pair of Rutter and Byrne caught Crutchlow who couldn’t hold Byrne back and slipped to 2nd on lap 12. Byrne’s team mate Camier brushed past Sykes to finish 6th so a good day at the office for Airwaves and their new riders / machines.
Further down the pack Sean Emmett, standing in for Steve Plater while he runs in the Le Mans 24hr event, finished a credible 11th on the AIM R1 but result of the race was Stuart Easton bagging a ninth place from 20th on the grid.
Special note goes to Michael Rutter who at last climbed back on the podium in 3rd after a couple of difficult years in the wilderness.
Next was the Supersport race which promised to be very exciting with the newly formed Embassy Triumph Racing team rider Glen Richards taking pole over Steve Brogan’s HM Plant CBR600 machine. When the lights went out Brogan got the drop and held the lead all the way to the end with Richards never more than an arm length away. Dennis Hobbs and James Webb were challenging for third and fourth until Webb lost control braking for Club after the fastest section of a very fast circuit, and skittled himself and Hobbs into the crash barriers. Fortunately Webb was up straight away but Hobbs was left lying prone after going into the bales head first and his bike hitting the safety fence more than 8ft in the air. As the safety guys raced to help and the spectators came out from behind their hands all the snappers put down their cameras and looked at each other - it looked real bad for Dennis (one of the nicest guys) and no-one wanted to say what we thought. Fortunately he suffered only a dislocated shoulder (and a few nightmares I imagine) and hopes to ride at Oulton.
Race 2 for the Bennetts Superbikes started with the same grid and in fact the same early leader as Haslam again tried to make his mark on the race. Harris, clearly pumped by his mechanical issues in race 1 was running in third and diced with Haslam (now behind Shakey who led) on lap 4 as they entered Club chicane and both riders had to run wide which put them down the order into 5th and 7th for Harris.
Crutchlow took his cue and proceeded to reel in the bikes ahead getting into 2nd place with Rutter immediately behind. Then tragedy struck the luckless Harris as Sykes slid off and left his Rizla Suzuki to mount a rather dramatic attack on fellow northerner Karl, who caught the big Gixxer in the mouth. Needless to say he lost control (understatement) of his bike (bravo for not losing control of more) and the red flag came out.
At the restart Sykes rejoined amid much confusion as to whether he was allowed to but got the all clear to his relief as he still managed to bring his spare bike home in 8th.
Crutchlow however, once the R8 pace car had left the track, simply pulled the pin and disappeared into the lead. Shakey must have been shook-up as he dropped to 5th but battle his way back to 2nd while Haslam was forced to retire thus completing a fairly poor weekend for him. But that benefited Rutter and Camier with a 3rd and 4th respectively. Rutter on back-to-back podium shocker and no mistake. Great to see.
Sadly we lost Jenko again, this time with a broken wrist after a crash at Church while the MV Augusta of Burns also hit the dirt and Emmett retired after a promising race 1. Scott Smart did another fine race finishing 12th after a frankly lame qualifying slot of 28th.
So as we wind up to the beautiful Oulton Park I guess Airwaves are looking very strong with high finishes from both riders, NW200 Ducati must be thrilled that their faith in Rutter has paid off and HM Plant, or at least one half of the garage, will be looking to spoil the Ducati-fest that we all hope the series won’t become. Bring on the park!!!
See you there then, it really is the best circuit in the season for every reason.
Make the effort. Make the trip. Take the experience.
