Oulton Park Sept 2018
Dan from our Leeds store writes the sponsored riders blog:
Hi everyone, this weekends racing came from Oulton Park for the 10th round of the British Superbike Championship. The weather was wet and wild, rain for most for the weekend, sunshine during parts but mainly wet or damp.
This was the first round of the ‘showdown' where the championship is decided, unfortunately J&S didn't have any riders taking part but there is always next season!!! Anyway let's catch up with how our sponsored riders went on.
Let's start with the Motostar championship first. We had Taylor Moreton racing this weekend, it was a crazy session for the younger riders. The track was damp but drying all the time, the lap times started to tumble with about 10 minutes to go. Taylor put in a lap time of 1.52.212 that put him 19th overall but more importantly he started 7th in his class.
His first race on Saturday was again a wet on due to showers just before the race started, Taylor had a great race and worked his way through the field to cross the line in 13th overall but a great result for him personally as he crossed the line as the 3rd bike in his class to finish. Another podium finish for the young rider.
The second race on Sunday saw Taylor again come home with another top 10 finish in his class, he crossed the line 15th overall but 7th in his class.
Onto the Supersport 600 class and we had 4 riders taking part this weekend.
Josh Owens who rides in the GP2 class which is along the same line as the Moto2 championship which runs along side the Moto GP championship. Josh qualified in 13th overall but 1st in his class.
J&S had a 3rd row lock out with Jamie Perrin starting from 7th, Harry Truelove in 8th and David Allingham starting from the outside of the third row in 9th.
In the first race on Saturday, Josh won his class by being the first GP2 machine to cross the line and finished 9th overall. In the 600cc class Jamie, Harry and David all crossed the line within 0.727 of each other.
Jamie held position and finished in 7th, Harry came home in 9th to record his best finish of the season so far. David Allingham finished in 8th place and inside the top 10 again but suffered with a brake problem towards the end of the race.
A mixed second race for all the riders backed by J&S, Josh Owens again won his class and crossed the line 5th overall.
Jamie Perrin suffered a DNF on lap 3 after starting from 10th place. Harry had a troubled race and unfortunately finished in 22nd place and a lap down. David Allingham started from 11th on the grid and came home in 10th place overall but the 9th in the Supersport class.
In the Superstock 1000 class the title race was going right down to the wire with 3 riders in with a chance of winning the championship.
Joe Collier had a testing qualifying session and started the first race from 11th on the grid, not ideal with his two championship rivals ahead of him. Billy went an put his Suzuki on pole position for the first race.
The first race took place on Saturday and action all the way through the field.
Joe had a fantastic race but it was action packed with battles all the way through. He started from 11th, slipped back to 20th at the end of lap 1. Gained 5 places and up to 15th by the end of lap 2, by lap 4 he had moved up to 10th and carving his was through the field nicely. Another 2 places and he was sat in 8th place and finally crossed the line to finish the race in 7th. After speaking with Joe once the race had finished he said the he had used all the grip from his rear tyre by pushing so hard to make his way back up the field and into the top 10.
Billy on the other hand had a more relaxing race and led from start to finish to claim another win and more championship points.
Race 2 on Sunday was a more chaotic race, riders falling off in certain parts of the track and the championship race was turned on it's head.
Joe started from 7th on the grid and crossed the line in 4th place. Again a great ride from Joe who got caught up in someone else crash and had to make his way through the pack again and the action was not over for Joe who sadly lost out in a last lap battle with Taylor Mackenzie for the last podium place.
Billy had a more eventful race this time out, battling all race long after starting from 3rd on the grid. Billy ran on at one of the corners and had a little trip into the gravel trap but managed to stay on his bike and came home in 7th place.
Billy is now 10.5 points behind Keith Farmer with only 1 race left of the Superstock 1000 season, all eyes will be on Brands Hatch in a few weeks time.
In the Superbike class we had Joe Francis making his first appearance on a superbike and was riding a BMW S1000RR.
Joe qualified in 19th place, Gino made it into Q2 and started the first race from 14th on the grid but it was Luke Mossey who started race 1 from the outside of the front row in 3rd place.
In the first race Luke didn't make the end of the race and recorded a DNF on lap 9. Joe Francis did well in his first ever superbike race and crossed the line in 16th place. Gino Rea had a solid race and came home in 14th place and 2 more championship points added to his total.
Race 2 and Joe didn't make the start line and was unable to start. Gino once again came home in 14th place and added a few more points to his tally.
Luke faired better in the second race and crossed the line to come home in 7th.
The championship now heads into Europe with the next round coming from the legendary Assen Circuit. Not all the classes will be racing there but wherever we have a rider I'm sure you will hear about it. So until next time thanks for reading.
Dan
