Centurion Racing had a tough weekend at the second round of the Fuches-Silkoline British Supersport Championship at Thruxton Circuit this weekend. After a great Qualifying day on Saturday with all three riders making it into the top 15, the team's luck changed dramatically on Sunday when Dennis Hobbs, riding an impressive race and against the factory-built bikes of Glen Richards and Steve Brogan was the hapless victim of a seventh lap rear-end double shunt at the s-bend chicanes at the hands of James Webb.
This lost Dennis his third place position, and the crash caused the deployment of the safety car. Dan Cooper suffered with technical problems with the Centurion Honda on the race day and was forced to retire. With both Centurion riders out of the race, it was left to James Westmoreland to secure the team a result in the 18-lap race with 15th place.
The trio of riders started well at the super fast 2.4-mile circuit and had all qualified well with Hobbs in fifth, Cooper in ninth and Westmoreland in 14th place. Cooper had a slow crash in first qualifying on Saturday and due to the extremely high curbs at Thruxton, and unluckily wrote off his number one bike. He was left with just one bike for the second qualifying session and the race.
This was the first race of the year for the riders, as the first round of the Championship at Brands Hatch was cancelled due to heavy snow. With varying weather conditions at Thruxton the team had to try many different set-ups on their machines. Hobbs managed to qualify on provisional pole in the first qualifying session but was pushed down the pack in the second session.
Dennis Hobbs suffered a dislocated shoulder in the crash during the race and commented: "I'm not very happy at the moment as I was running well in the race and out of no-where James hit me and hit me hard, and I'm in a fair bit of pain but hopefully all will be ok for Oulton. I don't seem to have much luck with other riders but hopefully I can bounce back from this one too and get the season started at Oulton."
Dan Cooper said: "I'm gutted not to have been able to finish the race as during the wet qualifying sessions I was running pretty high up and feeling really good on the bike. After half distance today in the race I was struggling really badly with grip on the rear tyre and this circuit is so hard on tyres that it just wasn't physically possible for me to carry on. I'm gutted for my team as they've all worked really hard."
James Westmoreland added: "I'm disappointed for all the team and all the Centurion riders as it's not been the best of weekends for us. It's a real shame when everyone has worked so hard and I wish I could have got a stronger result than this but it was the best I could manage this weekend. That was the first time that I rode that bike in the dry conditions and it wasn't set up as I'd like it. I had a few problems with my tyres and just couldn't get any further through the pack. I like Oulton Park so hopefully we'll all be able to get some good results for the team there. I hope Dennis has a quick recovery and is back fit for then."
The next race is at Oulton Park on the 3rd - 5th May.
Related Links:www.centurionracing.netWords by Carly Rathmell
