Gary Mason ended the season on a high with a first and second place within the Daily Star Cup at the final round of 2008 British Superbikes at the Kent circuit of Brands Hatch.
The Quay Garage Racing rider obtained a solid setup for Sunday races allowing him to battle hard throughout the afternoon. Mason’s qualifying didn’t go as well as hoped due to unforeseen circumstances, but still made it though to the second knockout session to start from 16th on the grid.
Mason:
“I am happy with the weekend, but disappointed with qualifying. We had a few problems with the front brake and then I got stung by a wasp that was trapped inside my leathers. It wasn’t until I came in after the first qualifying had ended to do anything about it. It was very hard and very tough, but I rode and worked as hard as I could.”
Within both races Mason was consistently around 10th position while fighting hard with NW200 rider John Laverty and MSS Kawasaki Billy McConnell for the majority. The battles provided entertainment to the crowd, of which it was anybodies guess who would have the last say across the finish line.
With the races taken place on the Indy circuit ,which is just under 1.2 miles long and extremely hard to pass the spectators witnessed a lot of pressure from riders and determination to move ahead at the first given opportunity. In Race one Mason won the battle of the Cup leaders by taking first, but had to settle for a not so disappointing second in race two.
Mason continues
: “Race one was the best race, we battled hard and I was able to take the win with regards to the Cup. In race two I had a blinding start and I was 12th on lap one. Then I had some gearbox issues, I tried to move from third to fourth, and it jumped to sixth. It was doing inconsistent things like that so I had to be careful, but then got my head down.”
“I was battling with Laverty, who got ahead of [Tristan] Palmer and I got held up a bit. He was so hard to pass and he rode so defensively. Once I got passed him I just got my head down more, but Laverty had pulled away so I did the best I could.”
With the 45 points he grabbed this weekend Mason has taken third place in the Daily Star Cup championship standings and moved to 16th in the British Superbike table overall becoming the first cup rider. This is after joining the championship late in the year in the fifth round at Snetterton.
As Mason now takes an well deserved break and looks at options for 2009, in which he should be returning to the BSB paddock, he said: “This year has been great, I have achieved what I wanted and more. My plan was to do the R1 cup to allow me to move back into Superbikes, which I have done. It all happened so much faster than I expected, which is great.”
“I would also like to thank Quay Garage Racing for giving me this opportunity, for all the hard work and amount of effort they have done. They are a great team and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time with them in every way.”
