VOL. 50 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 24, 2013
on the winning SRC Kawasaki
team and David Checa on the
Yamaha GMT 94 team. So the
top three spots in the first five
hours went to the factory teams
of BMW Motorrad France Team
Thevent (Sylvain Barrier, Josh
Waters and Sébastien Gimbert)
in first, Monster Energy Yamaha
YART (Broc Parkes, Josh Hayes
and Igor Jerman) in second, and
Honda TT Legends (Michael Rutter, Michael Dunlop and Simon
Andrews) in third.
A group crash would end the
Honda TT Legends team's hope
of a podium finish as Andrews
was seriously injured and the
bike was too badly damaged to
continue. According to a state-
ment made by the team, Andrews
suffered two broken legs, broken
ribs, a punctured lung and several fractured vertebra in the crash
and was undergoing surgery on
his leg.
Three-time AMA Superbike
Champion Josh Hayes' Monster
Energy Yamaha YART team also
had to drop out of the race a little
after the halfway mark, losing their
podium position and championship
title due to a mechanical issue.
Also falling victim to mechanical woes, the BMW Motorrad
Team Thevent had led the race
for nine hours, but had to retire
due to a problem with the gearshift mechanism.
The SRC Kawasaki rebounded
P25
from its early race crash and took
advantage of the Team Thevant
mechanical woes and took the
lead. Finishing behind them in
second was the R2CL team of
Guy Martin, Gwen Giabbani and
Dylan Buisson. The privateer Suzuki team ran a great race, finishing seven laps behind the SRC
Kawasaki team while holding off
the Yamaha GMT 94 team of David Checa, Kenny Foray and Matthieu Lagrive who fought back
from crashes and gearbox issues
to finish in third.
Jason
Pridmore's
BMW
Penz13.com team was another
mechanical casualty and had to
withdraw before the seven-and-ahalf-hour mark.
T
he British Superbike Series
invaded Assen in Holland
this past weekend for the 10th
round of its championship and
the first round of its Superbike
Championship Showdown. And
as the Showdown kicked off
sparks flew straight away as it
was a fierce battle between two
of the series top contenders –
the young Samsung Honda rider
Alex Lowes against three-time
British Superbike Champion
Shane Byrne.
Lowes fired the first shot grabbing the pole position for the
weekend. And when the lights
went green in race one, he would
also take the holeshot. But the
battle for victory would go to the
end between Byrne and Lowes
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF BSB
DOUBLE DUTCH TREAT
Alex Lowes (22) grabbed the holeshot in race
one at Assen from defending British Superbike Champion Shane Byrne (67).
with the pair swapping positions
six times on the final lap. In the
end it was Lowes edging out By-
rne to close the gap in the championship to just a single point.
Unfortunately, James Ellison's
continued on page 26
