BSB: Oulton Park - "Shakey" Shakey & "Awesome" Alex!

Well, I must say that I did not see that coming!

Having finally watched the British Superbike Championship race from Oulton Park in Cheshire that took place over the recent bank holiday weekend, I can now comment on this and review the action accordingly...


Race One
 
First of all Race One saw an electrifying Alex Lowes set a qualifying time that was a full half second ahead of the rest of the guys on the grid thereby staking his intent as one of Shane "Shakey" Byrne's closest rivals when it comes to the Showdown at the end of the season. He started off as he meant to in the race itself losing only a temporary grasp of the lead on the opening lap from Shakey with Josh Brookes pushing up close as well.

You could tell that the moment Lowes hit the front of the grid he was going to get the hammer down and try and open up a gap from Shakey only for Shakey to come close to snatching the lead before the bike dropped from under him. 

It was shortly after this sort of time that Brookes himself started to lose ground upon Lowes and when Lowes brother was seen on the pit wall urging his brother to 'slow down' after Shakey had fallen, he said after the race that he wondered what that was all about because he had been seeing on the pit board "+0,+0,+0 and then Shakey went down and it said +5".

Post race reaction seemed to suggest that it was no fault in Byrne's racing line or a bike fault as he sought to make the hairpin leaving it as an unfortunate racing incident, really.

Finally, the other moment of note was that when Brookes started losing ground, this allowed Milwaukee Yamaha's James Ellison to gain enough ground to snatch the second spot from him. Could this be the return of the same Ellison we saw before he had his disappointing season with MotoGP? One can only hope...

I'll tell you what though, when I saw the Doodson Motorsport Honda fly through the air and hit one of the track steward stands (it looked like from the angle on TV), it was such a relief to see Robbin Harms walk away unhurt.
 
Race Two
 
Race Two saw an emphatic return to form for Shakey who quite literally "shook off" his Race One disappointment to lock out the top step of the podium for himself, giving a 50% return on race victories at Oulton Park.

The race hadn't even got under way when the first incident occurred as James Westmoreland & Peter Hickman both collided in dramatic fashion ensuring that neither would be able to go on to finish the race.

Alex Lowes again made his claim for being at the sharp end of the championship with the lead on the seventh lap of eighteen. At this point I naturally thought he was going to make it two out of two and thus own Oulton Park for the 2013 season... not so!

How wrong I was as two laps later, Shakey regained first spot!

I will say at this point that I thought it was funny hearing ITV4's Jack Burnicle in the opening stages of the race almost miss the move on Shakey by Lowes as he started calling out Byrne as the race leader, despite James Whitham's attempted interruptions that it wasn't Byrne but Lowes who had the lead (that's the funny thing about live commentary, you see?!)!

This time things seemed to look up for Brookes as he managed to pass Lowes on lap eleven and a slight run offline meant that Ellison could move into third. Lowes would pass Ellison before the race was out due to an electrical fault on Ellison's bike allowing Lowes to complete a race weekend with a win and a third place behind Brookes.

The championship going into the next round up in Scotland at Knockhill sees Lowes' performances earn him top spot by a single point ahead of Shakey whose mishap you could argue cost him a temporary (hopefully!) relinquishment of the 2013 championship.

Who will shine at Knockhill? It's anyone's guess at the moment between Byrne, Lowes, Brookes & Ellison proving that it's maybe not quite going to play out as inevitable as it might have seemed before Oulton Park.

Peace out, bro's!


The Lanky Penguin