After torrential rain and a very difficult few days for everyone in the BSB paddock, the KTM 990 Super Duke Battle picked up where it left off at Donington MotoGP with another belter of a race this past weekend at Mallory Park.
All qualifying on Saturday was cancelled due to the terrible weather conditions. This meant that the Battle riders had just one 20 minute free practice session on Saturday afternoon and one 15 minute session on Sunday morning. The weather also resulted in the planned second Battle race of the day on Sunday being cancelled due mounting time schedule pressures.
The decision was made to start all of Sunday’s races from current championship positions, which meant a front row of Darren Fry (The KTM Centre), Pauli Pekkanen (Hualto-Kaksikko Racing), Kelvin Reilly (In Moto Corse) and Francis Williamson (SJ Racing).
Ironically after all the poor weather, the Battle took place on Sunday afternoon on a dry track with good conditions and yet again produced one of the best races of the day. Fry took an early lead closely followed by Pekkanen. On the second lap Fry inexplicably lost the front end going through the Esses thus ending his race. This allowed Pekkanen to push on and he maintained a 2 second lead over Williamson and Patrick McDougall (Beowulf Racing) for the next few laps.
Pekkanen looked to be running away with it until lap 6 when Dave Wood (Art of Racing) took over second place and made a charge for the front. Within 5 laps Wood had reeled Pekkanen in and took over a lead that he was never to lose. Despite some aggressive and ambitious passing attempts by Pekkanen, Wood was the victor by 0.8 seconds.
“Mr Consistency” Francis Williamson rode a really strong race to complete the podium. Smith proved he was back on form finishing less than a tenth of a second behind in fourth and Scott Roper (Robinsons of Rochdale) was not far behind producing his best finish of the season in fifth.
The postponed second Battle race of the day will now be held at one of the final three rounds, provisionally Cadwell Park, on Bank Holiday Monday August 27.
The remaining rounds are as follows:
Round 7 - Cadwell Park - August 27
Round 8 - Cadwell Park - August 27 (provisional)
Round 9 - Donington - September 23
Round 10 - Brands Hatch - October 14
Image - Mitterbauer H.
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