There were thrills and spills aplenty at Brands Hatch in the latest round of the MCE British Superbike Championship.
All eyes were on the BSB bikes but once again the support series provided some entertaining racing for all those fans watching trackside.
Fans of Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne knew that the reigning champion wasn’t going to have it all his own way at his home track, as James Ellison was absolutely flying out front all weekend. Josh Brookes was looking extremely racey and Ryuichi Kiyonari is always dangerous around Brands Hatch as he is any circuit.
Race one got underway with Shakey on 5th place on the grid, and was up to third place by the first corner, he clearly didn’t quite have the pace of Ellison and Kiyonari who started to move away from the Kent based rider.
The race was punctuated by safety cars and yellow flags as riders came off at consistent intervals, the major incident came at the exit of Graham Hill bend early in the race, with three riders taken out in one incident.
Having built a lead Ellison had to build it back-up again but to be fair no one could live with the pace that he had, and despite another safety car and three additional laps on the end of the race, he moved away to take a well-deserved win.
Behind him after the final safety car, there was a great battle between Byrne, Brookes and Kiyonari, going into the last lap it was Kiyo, Shakey and Brookes. When they approached the last corners, Byrne made a move stick on Kiyo for second, then as they approached the line, Brookes pulled out of Kiyo’s slipstream to steal third place.
Howie Mainwaring-Smart had an uneventful race in terms of incidents but it was a solid performance for the Quattro Plant Kawasaki rider, with an excellent seventh place, to show he should be fighting right up there in the top ten.
Points was also the order of the day in race one for Tommy Hill’s BeWiser Kawasaki riders Danny Buchan and Chris Walker.
The second race of the weekend, was not quite so action packed in terms of crashes but the racing was no less exciting. There was a great battle for second place between last season’s title protagonists.
Ellison had once again cleared off down the road, but was slowly reeled in by Byrne, Kiyo and Brookes as they pulled each other along. It was to be Byrne who took second place with Brookes close behind and Kiyo in fourth.
Once again Howie Mainwaring-Smart showed that he had good race pace coming home in seventh place for Quattro Plant Kawasaki for another decent points finish.
It was more points for Tommy Hill’s BeWiser boys of Buchan and Walker, and it was good to see the new team finishing strongly.
Elsewhere Jake Dixon showed he is a real talent in the British Supersport championship taking third place in an entertaining race, which also saw Danny Webb come home in seventh place. Ryan Dixon also finished in the final points paying position in the Evo class.
Thoughts go out to the riders in the Superstock 600 race that had massive collision which caught up Ross Twyman on the opening lap. Both James Puttrell and Jordy de Jonge, had to be airlifted to hospital with serious injuries.
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