FINAL ROUND/OCTOBER 20, 2013
JEREZ CIRCUIT/JEREZ, SPAIN
WORLD SUPERBIKE
P82
WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP
Eugene Laverty
swept the weekend
at Jerez, matching
Tom Sykes for the
most wins on the
season.
Sykes, liberated by the trophy
sitting in his garage, made much
more of a fight of it in race two,
leading for 13 of the 21 laps.
But Laverty was on top form
again and won his ninth race of
the year – equaling Sykes' 2013
win total – to prove he was the
best challenger.
A short history of Sykes' career in World Superbike shows
an admirable ability to overcome
adversity, some of which his Kawasaki Racing team has shared.
As teammate to the much more
favored and experienced Ben
Spies with Yamaha in 2009, he
was almost a hollow man at season end, injured and seemingly
invisible, despite finishing inside
the top 10.
A year later, in 2010, he was
on the old style Kawasaki Ninja
1000 in the World Superbike
class, and took it to an unlikely
pole position at one race.
The year after that, Kawasaki
let him ride again on a third new
style ZX-10R run by Paul Bird of
Paul Bird Motorsports - the team
that ran the Kawasaki team back
then. Kawasaki preferred Chris
Vermeulen and Joan Lascorz,
but Sykes got a gig too. Just as
well, as he was going to be the
guy who one year later almost
beat Max Biaggi – losing by only
half a point.
In 2012 Sykes won four races,
worked with the new Kawasaki
factory team Provec from Spain
and their ex Grand Prix techs
