Kent’s Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing latest round of the MCE British Superbike championship from Cadwell Park.
Byrne had to settle for a highest finish in both Sunday’s races of fourth and that came in race two, following on from his sixth place in race one. It was testament to his talent that he could bring home two results having qualified in 11th place.
Aboard the PBM Kawasaki ZX-10R, the reigning and four-time champion was able to salvage two results after a difficult start to the race weekend at the iconic Lincolnshire track, and says he now wants to move on and look ahead to the next round of the series.
Byrne was the only rider in action for the squad this weekend as Stuart Easton continues to recover from his Brands Hatch crash last month, and the Londoner was hoping the annual trip to Cadwell Park would bring better fortune than his last outing at Thruxton.
The weekend got off to a bad start as he struggled during free practice, ending the opening day tenth fastest and more than a second adrift of his nearest rival. The team worked hard overnight and came back fighting for qualifying yesterday whereby Byrne had to settle for a fourth row grid spot in 11th position for the first race.
The opening MCE BSB race turned out to be a rather sedate affair for the reigning champion. Despite picking up three places at the start, he sat in eighth for the first eight laps before moving to seventh and then, on the final lap, he made a move to grab sixth.
For race two, Shakey lined up in sixth and got himself another good start as he moved up to fourth. Despite dropping to fifth soon after, he kept a steady head, catching and passing the rider in front on the 12th lap to retake fourth, a spot he held comfortably all the way to the flag.
Despite not adding to his Podium Points tally, Byrne has comfortably qualified for the end of season ‘Showdown’ whereby he is hoping to be joined by teammate Easton upon his return at the next round.
Speaking after a challenging weekend, Byrne said: “It’s really difficult to be positive if I look just at my results but at the same time if I look back to where I was on Friday when I just wanted to go home because I wasn’t feeling it at all, then I have to think that we have made some decent steps forward.
“The team worked so hard for me this weekend to try and find the solutions but we still aren’t where we should be. If I’m trying to quantify how happy I am on results then obviously I’m not very happy at all, but I feel generally that the progress we’ve made over the course of the weekend has been good and I’m pretty pleased with that.
“Obviously I don’t go racing for fourth and sixth places and neither does the PBM team, and right now we need a bike that can win again. I’ve been training hard since the last round and I know I’ve worked my nuts off so we need to all go back and look at what we can do to come back at Oulton Park at our best.”
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