Luck was in very short supply for Team Appleyard/Macadam who had a weekend to forget at the Oulton Park round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship. The only highlights in an otherwise totally frustrating weekend were Deane Brown claiming pole position and Jordan Thompson comprehensively topping the timesheets in the wet qualifying session on Sunday for the Relentless 125GP Championship race.
After his strong performance at Thruxton, 15 year old Deane Brown was hungry for a podium at Oulton Park and gave himself the best chance of this by qualifying in pole position, clinching the top slot with two ultra fast laps right at the end of the session. Come race day however, his Seel engine machine developed electrical problems on the warm up lap and despite frantic efforts to rectify this he was unable to take his place at the front of the grid. Commenting, Deane said; “This is really disappointing and frustrating for me and all the team but I guess it’s just one of those things. I was obviously hoping for a podium and maybe a win today and we certainly had the package to do that with the set-up we found. However it wasn’t to be. I think they call things like this ‘character building’!”
Team mate Jordan Thompson had qualified in 19th position and from the start quickly declared his intentions by moving through the field. By only the second lap, he had reached 11th place and was looking to move even further ahead when he got taken out by another competitor, injuring his arm in the process. “I was really hoping to bring a smile to the team today after all the issues they have had to deal with so to have a good position taken away from me is really frustrating. Still, all I want to do now is make sure I’m fit and ready for Brands hatch this coming weekend.”
Team Manager Robin Appleyard added: "This weekend was obviously never meant to be for the team, especially with Ashley Beech suffering from tonsillitis and being unable to take part in the Fuchs-Silkolene British Supersport Championship race. Still, the positives we take away are the pole position from Deane that could have so easily been turned into a top position and perhaps even more encouraging, the tremendous performance by Jordan in the wet qualifying session and then his ride through to 11th before the incident. At this rate of progress, he’s going to be racking up the points very soon.”
