VOL. 54 ISSUE 27 JULY 11, 2017 P61
"Tom (Sykes) was strong for the
first part there and then I just tried
to run my own race," Davies said
after race one. "If Johnny (Rea) had
come past and set a good pace I
would have been quite content to
settle for second, but I put every-
thing together at the end and it was
enough to just break away a little
bit."
He knew he had two races come
the end of Sunday but only a lesser
bike setup for him, and a better one
for his two Kawasaki rivals, held him
back to third in race two—not his
back injury.
"It was a mostly lonely but still dif-
ficult race," said Davies of race two.
"Our start wasn't bad, but our rivals'
was better. It will be something to
work on during the summer break.
The bike was making a lot of noise
today, so we'll look into that, but
I'm not sure it affected our perfor-
mance. Our rivals rode a great race
nonetheless."
Jonathan Rea (Kawasaki Racing
Team), who was second on Sat-
urday, was the dialed-in and con-
sistently quick winner on Sunday,
marking his ninth victory of the year.
He edged ever closer to a historic
third-consecutive championship af-
ter he caught up to the fast-starting
Tom Sykes (Kawasaki Racing Team)
and even eased away from him as
he just sought out a good pace to
maintain a gap. "You don't get many
of those," he said as he reaffirmed
that most of his wins in 2017 have
been much closer fought affairs.
"Right from the first lap Tom got
away and I found it hard coming
through at that stage," said Rea of
