IN
THE
WIND
P34
Byrne (67) and Brookes
(25) go at it—it's between
these two for the title with
three rounds to go.
BYRNE BITES BACK HEADING
INTO SHOWDOWN
S
hane Byrne has taken two race wins out of
three at Oulton Park, September 6, to close
back up to leader Josh Brookes in the British
Superbike Championship. Brookes now leads
the title by a slender two points heading into the
three-round Showdown. From this point on, only
the top six riders in the championship standings
become the "Title Fighters" for the final three
events. Each Title Fighter begins The Showdown
with 500 points, plus additional points for each
podium position they obtained in the main season,
meaning Brookes now has 553 points to Byrne's
551. Third to sixth in the Showdown is filled by
James Ellison, Tommy Bridewell, Dan Linfoot and
Michael Laverty, in that order.
Byrne could have made it three wins at Oulton
Park had his PBM Kawasaki not packed up in race
two, leaving an uncontested victory for Brookes on
the Milwaukee Yamaha. Brookes had earlier lost
valuable points having to start from 30
th
and last in
race one after a technical problem saw him com-
plete only one lap. The Australian charged through
the field to eventually finish fourth, followed by the
race two win and a second in race three to mini-
mize the damage to his title chances.
American John Hopkins had a disastrous week-
end, failing to finish all three races on the Moto
Rapido Ducati Panigale R. Hopkins set a new lap
record in practice on Friday to steal provisional
pole, but that was as good as it got for the former
MotoGP star who clearly still has the speed, but
no luck at the moment.
American James Rispoli banked another
solid weekend with 5-2 results for Team Traction
Control in the British Supersport Championship.
Rispoli's teammate Andy Reid took victory in race
one from Jake Dixon's Smiths Triumph, but suf-
fered a massive high-side coming out of the last
corner in race two after just taking the lead from
Dixon, who went on to take the race two win. CN
