1st BSB weekend. No Snow.

The paddock must have been like a Fast Bikes re-union.
Shakey Byrne. 1st and 2nd.
Sean Emmett. Deputising for Plater in Superbikes and then jumping
straight on an R1 Cup bike and coming 2nd
Gary Mason. 4th in the R1 Cup
Rob Frost. Somewhere around 12th in the Supersports race.

But mainly, what a great show Palmer has put together. With virtually
the whole thing shown live on Eurosport 2 with no ads in the races.
Burnicle, Witham and Carter were shoving mics in people's faces all
afternoon. And what a great circuit Thruxton is.

Great to see Michael Rutter back to his old self. And that John Hackett
can build a 1098R that looked just as good as the Airwaves bikes. But
ride of the day I think goes to John Laverty on a half converted
Superstock 1098R. They still had 17" wheels on it so were using
superstock rubber but he still managed to come in 12th and 11th 25s back
and way ahead of the next Cup runner.

You have to feel for Karl Harris and Yamaha. He was going really fast
but had an engine blow in the first race and was ripped off the back of
his bike by a flying Suzuki in the second race. He was being walked into
the ambulance so hopefully nothing was broken.

 

x2 - maximum kudos to Eurosport. A superb afternoon's broadcast, with
exceptional camera work and high quality audio feed. The racing wasn't half
bad either

Two very ugly shunts, Harris's was particularly gruesome I thought.
Accidents like that normally crop up on the shock-sites in the section
marked "Fatal".

Interestingly when interviewed the Rizla Suzuki manager mentioned Jonathan
Palmer, airfences, safety equipment costs and Brands' Clearways in the same
sentence, the implication being that Palmer's MotorSport Vision
organisation will bring in plenty of safety funding.

And it was hilarious to hear Murray Walker answer the wrong question that
Chris Carter hadn't asked him, bless him.

 

Except for lots of audio cock-ups, it was pretty good.

Quite enjoy the first 2, and Whitham being nervous on the grid was funny.
However, I find Carter very annoying. Just seems to lack knowledge, tact
or any presenting skill at all.

Very nasty accident, which I'm glad he walked away from. They all seemed
to be laying the blame on Sykes though, which was unfair.

 

Yup. He kept falling back on the old standby "So what are the riders
feeling moment"

While watching I was more worried by the accident at the chicane. They
seemed to be flying into the air fencing awfully fast.

 

Watched the whole Thruxton show on Eurosport2 Sunday. Being a Yank
living in England, this was my first experience with BSB. I must say
I loved the broadcast and, particularly, Thruxton. What an amazing
circuit. With all that space available, though, I'd have thought the
walls could be just a little further away. I cringed a few times when
I first saw how close they were and how fast the riders were
traveling, even before the two accidents. Thought they were much more
serious than they turned out to be. Ugly looking, for sure.

-Dirt-

 

I don't really know how safe or not safe Thruxton is. Even though it's
pretty unique and not like any other UK circuit, it seems to be the same
from a safety point of view. There are places where it's proper fast and
there's huge run off, but nobody falls off there. There are other places
where the riders are under hard braking or accelerating off a slow
corner or switching across the track where it feels like the walls are
awfully close. And then riders find new ways to crash and end up flying
into air fencing. Round all the circuits it's mostly grass and not
gravel traps so when they do fall off they tend to slide a long way. But
also they don't get tossed around the way gravel traps tend to. The last
hairpin through to the first corner feels dangerous with not much run
off on the left, but people don't fall off there.

The 1st crash happened early on the fastest part of the track into a 1st
gear hairpin. If they'd crashed in the hairpin it would have been fine,
but they touched well back when they're still going real fast. The
Sykes, Haslam, Harris crash didn't happen in the corner and was pretty
damn weird. If they'd touched in the corner the run off would have been
fine but it happened before the braking. I don't know how you allow for
that stuff.

If you're in the UK for long, do try and get to a meeting. Maybe rent a
bike if you don't have one.

 

It's not as if the US doesn't have its share of unsafe circuits.
Pretty much anything run in a bowl (gag) falls into that category in
one way or another. Given the size of the country you'd think we'd be
able to put together more than just a small handfull of FIA/FIM
approved circuits that meet or exceed all current safety standards.
I'm struggling to think if any more than Laguna, Miller and Barber(?)
are FIM approved.

-Dirt-

 

Been here for about eight months now and have a little over a year to
go. I doubt I'll pick up a bike. No time to ride as I'm working on a
construction site 60 hours a week. Even if I had the time, I doubt I
could make it work. I'm over on a work visa and I get the impression
that a foreigner can't hire anything due to lack of credit and
insurance history.

-Dirt-

 

I checked about hiring a 2nd car for my wife when we got here and the
lease company who supplies all the cars for our project told me
essentially that I was out of luck and that they couldn't rent to me.
This is probably different than simply hiring a car from the airport
for a week. I'm talking long term lease.

-Dirt-

 

....and Thruxton is only 20 miles away from my house!

 

heh. Probably not

Well, that sort of is how it is unique. And its high average speed.

 

How does that work then? Two riders on the same team, but one a full
BSB rider, and the other in the Privater Cup. Are there technical
restrictions on the bike Laverty uses?

Cheers,

 

Rutter is on a full SBK machine and always was. Laverty was supposed to
be in Superstock 1000. But there was a disagreement about the rules and
it was decided that the 1098R isn't eligible this year for Superstock. A
compromise was reached; Laverty can race in the Privateer Cup but with a
Superstock level bike apart from SBK wheels and tyres. It's probably a
good compromise.
- The team feel hard done by because they never hid what they were doing
and were only told a couple of weeks before the season start
- This bit of the rules is ambiguous and badly written
- The organisers get to see just how fast a Superstock 1098R can be on
slicks. Which lets them judge next year's rules.