As far as I'm aware, it's either between James Westmoreland whose simply sublime performances throughout both races to ensure he'd be in the Showdown at the expense of Kirkham (on account of his sixth placed finishes as they finished tied on points going into Assen next time out), or Alex Lowes for his race pace and consistency. I'll get onto that in due course.
Down comes the chequered flag and it was indeed Lowes who took the win ahead of Byrne & Bridewell (who took full advantage of Ellison's earlier mishap and put it to good use) bringing his Halsall Racing Kawasaki home on the final step of the podium.
There was one movement I want to talk about for a moment that occurred in the dying moments of Race Two; Byrne on Lowes at Coppice. Due to his speed and a risk of locking the bike up and running out either himself or Lowes (or both!) he opted against pushing it too hard else he'd have run out of track like Ellison.
It is moves like this that prove who are the champions and who are the contenders and for Byrne it was a chance to stuff his bike up the inside of Lowes', but on a recognition of safety first and rightly so, he opted against making the manoeuvre more dangerous than it needed to be.
Byrne never took that mishap lying down though as by the time they'd got to Goddard's it was likely that he was going to try and scorch Lowes for pace. He was only undone by five one hundredths of a second (or 0.05 to those not in the know!). It was laughably close because it saw Byrne wheelie across the line, thinking he'd taken the race win, only to swiftly realise that Lowes had done it by that slenderest of margins.
Behind all this lot was Brookes, Ellison (who can't really argue with a sixth placed finish after his mishap, lol!) & Kirkham. As a result of these performances, he had to give up his sixth place in the standings to Westmoreland for the Showdown on account of number of overall 6th placed finishes in the season it was that tight, bro's! :(
RIDER OF THE DAY
You know how I've said that this was 'easy' or 'no one else would do' and things like that when talking about my Riders of the Day?
Well this one was anything but easy, because of the way James Westmoreland consistently finished where he needed to be to maximise his points to beat his team-mate to the all important sixth-placed Showdown spot. On the other hand, Alex Lowes was faultless and effortless (though I'm sure riding a superbike is anything than effortless in my mind, HA!) in his performances so it really is a tough choice who to pick... but I've made up my mind: -
James Westmoreland
The Buildbase BMW rider was awesome with his qualifying performances and to make it two pole's out out of two at Donington, along with some pretty hefty points finishes (11 & 13 I believe) thus ensuring he will be up there fighting for the championship amongst the best of the BSB grid, this is why I'm choosing him as my Rider of the Day.
I've told you before that the way I look at things like this, though sometimes my winners are obvious, other times they're not because I'm not just looking for winners, I'm looking for high performances along with the tenacity to prove they finish exactly where they deserve and no lower.
Next time out, as mentioned it's Assen and the start of the Showdown in two weeks' time, so expect my review in around the same amount of time (on the Friday UK time as the ITV coverage is on the Wednesday) peeps!
Until next time...
Peace out!
The Lanky Penguin
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