British Superbikes Round 3 was held at the scenic 2.7 mile Cheshire circuit of Oulton Park last week, under yet another grey, leaden sky. This was despite the rest of the country appearing to be in store for a fine Bank Holiday weekend, which didn’t do much for our spirits as we climbed into our sleeping bags, locked the car doors and hoped for sunshine when we woke on Saturday morning.
Fat chance.
Rain bouncing off the car roof was the first thing I heard followed by someone shouting near the car. Goddamn they’ve followed me from Thruxton, the early morning shouters.
Anyway, how did we leave things from Thruxton? Well the Bennetts British Superbikes Championship was a dead heat with HM Plant’s Cal Crutchlow in a tie with Airwaves’ Shane Byrne as both riders had taken equal wins and second places at that circuit.
As far as the supporting classes went, Steve Brogan and his HM Plant Honda CBR600RR headed the table with Embassy Racing’s Triumph mounted Glen Richards 5 points behind after their nail biting cat-and-mouse race at Thruxton. Would we be treated to a similar race this weekend?
Brogan also led the Superstock 1000 class on, yes you guessed it, a Fireblade while Luke Jones led the sibling class – the 600 Superstock series.
So once Mike joined the gang on Saturday morning the games commenced just after 9 in the morning. We decided who was going to use our borrowed 600mm bazooka lens (him) and off we went for a walk around the circuit since Mike was new to it. It didn’t take long for the action to unfold as Oulton is a tricky circuit in the dry never mind the rain/drizzle that Saturday vomited up for us.
Druids corner in particular is a nightmare of a right hander off a fast section, hidden under trees (so can be dirty and is slow to dry) then finishes with a crest leading onto another straight. So as the power is applied the bike goes light over the crest, the back comes around and highsides (or at least nutcrackers) are common.
Crutchlow laid down his gauntlet with a leading time only 0.151 seconds ahead of his team mate Leon Haslam and Byrne half a second later.
Sunday promised a better day weather wise and indeed it warmed up and was almost sunny in the afternoon. The riders put their dark visors on and set about qualifying in earnest. Crutchlow continued to lead the way and got pole position on the grid by over half a second from the Ducati mounted Byrne who sneaked ahead of a very impressive Tom Sykes on the Rizla Suzuki which seems a massive improvement over last seasons unruly beast. Haslam rounded out the front row while a determined Rutter, Harris and Camier all lined up behind him. So all the usual suspects in pretty much form book places.
The Fuchs Silkolene grid had a surprise at the head of it in the shape of Chris Martin on the Gearlink Racing Kawasaki ZX-6R leading the MAP Embassy Triumph of the laid back Glen Richards. Young Chris had looked strong all weekend and perhaps it was the ZX-6R’s long awaited moment of fame. Indeed, the usually dominant Honda CBR600RR could only manage a 7th place over a second behind the leader. Two Triumphs, two R6s, a Suzuki and Martin’s green machine made the top 6, variety indeed. A class race was promised with the twisty circuit possibly suiting the 600s better than the 1000cc machines.
LB’s tame racer, Sam Middlemas, sadly didn’t have a great weekend on his Superstock 600 Triumph 675 as he seems a little down on power esp compared to the high revving Yamaha R6s which are the bikes to have at the moment. And it was to get worse come Monday’s qualifying.
So race day arrived with at least dry conditions, well until the racing started which threw everything out the window.
With the Superbike riders on the grid on slicks, the clouds got lower and heavier and finally started leaking during the warm-up lap. The lights went out and the pack charged into the 1st corner with rain on their visors and a dramatic loss of grip. Several riders had already been signalling on the grid but the race continued and the result of this decision was McConnell, Sykes and Haslam all biting the dirt on the first corner. Byrne got a “crap start” (his words) and several riders had to take to the grass to avoid the carnage. Out came the red flag and in went the riders.
At the restart Haslam dropped back to 5th but ended up fighting tooth and nail with Byrne for the lead in the closing laps. Sykes and Crutchlow did all the early running with several close encounters but as usual in these situations, all they achieved was to slow each other down and allow Byrne, Haslam, Rutter and Camier to get past eventually.
No good news for everyone’s favourite Karl Harris on the Yamaha R1 as he lost the front in Druids and despite a gallant attempt to keep it upright as he skipped across grass and gravel it all ended up in a mess and he added yet more injuries to the list started at Thruxton, not least of all a broken foot. He can be seen wearing one black and one original white boot – the black one being a replacement in a bigger fitting to accommodate his swollen foot from which he cut the plaster off to allow any boot to fit. Hard man? Certainly. A little too keen ? Perhaps. These bikes are monsters and riding with a broken foot surely contributed to the fall.
So the Fuchs Silkolene Supersport race was next up and what a cracker it turned out to be. Glen Richards and Hudson Kennaugh stormed off the line and spent the next 20mins fighting neck and neck for the lead. At the start of the last lap Richards got the nose of his MAP Embassy Triumph ahead of Kennaugh’s Raceways R6 at turn 1 only to lose the front a couple of corners later and let the South African back to the lead.
That’s how it stood all the way to the last corner, Lodge which traditionally only had one line through it. Richards said later that he was happy to settle for 2nd (series leader Brogan was a distant 5th) but then saw a run around the outside of the 90 degree right hander and passed the doubtlessly astonished Kennaugh to clinch the first win for the newly formed MAP Embassy Triumph team, and the first win for the 675 in this class since it started competing in 2006. Glen’s team-mate Paul Young started in 5th, his best ever start, but eagerness got the better of him and he jumped the start so suffered a ride-through penalty yet still brought the triple home in 16th.
Race 2 for the Superbikes started in dry conditions as the weather appeared to have sorted itself out for the rest of the afternoon and was a controversial race which saw Haslam and Sykes have another coming together while dicing for the lead. Haslam continued but Sykes was dumped on his ‘arris. Harris crashed at Druids again – and later accepted that perhaps he was simply too injured to ride properly – but wasn’t alone there for long as Crutchlow bit the dirt there a lap later and hurt his hand pretty badly. On the same lap Dean Ellison ran into the prone Steve Mercer’s bike and was mashed up pretty badly – he may not be fit for Brands this weekend which is a shame as he is on the pace in the dry.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Ellison clan though as younger brother James took his Bike Animal Hydrex Honda to a brilliant 3rd behind Haslam and Byrne which was then turned into a 2nd place as the Stewards decided that Haslam had acted in breach of the rules when he shunted Sykes off and so was disqualified from the results. Great job James !
Another great ride was that of newbie Atsushi Watanabe on the Rizla Suzuki who got faster and faster all weekend as his track knowledge grew. He finished race two with a credible 9th after fighting with the resurgent Scott Smart on the 08 ZX-10R of Hawk Kawasaki who beat the Japanese rider for the 8th place.
So it was an interesting weekend for the two top series, obviously Shane Byrne and Airwaves Ducati in general are going to feel very confident for the coming race at Brands. HM Plant are probably frustrated not to get any results from race 2 as it leaves them (Crutchlow) 40 points behind Byrne with Shakey’s team mate Leon Camier one point ahead of Cal in 2nd place.
In the Supersport series Glen Richards has a 9 point advantage over Steve Brogan so HM Plant generally had a bad weekend. Come on the triples!!
Photo Galleries (600 Shots)
British Superbikes - R3, Oulton Park #1
British Superbikes - R3, Oulton Park #2
British Superbikes - R3, Oulton Park #3
British Superbikes - R3, Oulton Park #4
