a difficult weekend. I'm feeling a little secoDespite carrying broken bones in his hand and a badly damaged knee Simon Andrews put in a superb performance at round eight of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at the Scottish Circuit of Knockhill. Andrews crashed last week during testing at Mallory Park, in preparation for the World Superbike round at Brands Hatch, sadly missing out on the chance to perform at the World level, the youngster had a week to try and get fit for Knockhill. After digging deep and battling through the pain, he secured two solid results of an eighth and sixth respectively.
Andrews on the Lloyds British backed Jentin Racing Team struggled most of the weekend at Knockhill with the pain. With the track only being a short 1.3-mile circuit, it proved very testing, very physical and aggravated his injuries. Working hard with the on site physios and icing his hand on every possible occasion the 25-year-old from Evesham was not able to get a good qualifying session on the very wet circuit and ended up in a low 19th place on the grid.
Debating whether to race or not Andrews decided he would give it a go and see how he performed in the first race. With the ever changing weather conditions the first race was declared wet but with a distinctive drying line the Jentin team opted to use full slick tyres. Making a good start Andrews was 16th at the end of the opening lap and each lap he was picking off riders one by one, by lap 18 he was 10th; Billy McConnell and Atsushi Watanabe had a coming together at the Hairpin and this allowed Andrews to take a strong eighth place.
The second race became very similar to race one and once again as the riders lined up on the grid the heavens opened and the temperature dropped. Initially heading out on full wets, Andrews gained a fantastic start and was 14th at the end of the opening lap. After ten laps a crash involving three riders caused the race to be red flagged and giving the riders the opportunity to change tyres for the 20-lap re-start. Opting for an intermediate front and rear tyre, he again gained a great start and was in eighth at the end of the first lap. Fighting hard Andrews was having on track battles with James Ellison and Leon Camier, eventually getting the better of Camier. On lap 14 the race was red flagged again, after Shakey Byrne crashed out at the first corner, allowing Andrews to secure a fantastic sixth place and he was also awarded the Airwaves 'Kick up a Gear' award.
Commenting Andrews said:"I'm really pleased with the results I got this weekend as I really didn't know if I would be able to ride. I must say thanks to the CJ Physios (www.cjnine.com) in the medical centre for helping me out so much over the last couple of weekends, I really appreciated it. It was actually worse to ride the bike in the wet as it really made my hand swell up so I was hoping for dry races but we got a bit of both. The weather at Knockhill always seems to prove a bit of a problem and you never really know what it's going to do. I'm pleased I could get the results I did for the Jentin team as they all worked extremely hard over what wasnd hand now but hopefully I will be fighting fit for Cadwell Park in a couple of week's time.
