Two podiums for Reynolds despite injury

Shane Byrne, Michael Rutter, Sean Emmett, and John Reynolds made up the top four all weekend at the second round of the British Superbikes championship at Snetterton, but only 15 days previously Rizla Suzuki rider Reynolds was in hospital with a broken collar bone after a heavy crash at the first round at Silverstone.

The four riders made up the first row of the grid after Superpole and went on to share the podium positions.

Race one saw Byrne get the best start but Rutter was on him all the way through the race and eventually managed to pass him on the penultimate lap when Byrne backed off with a vibrating back tyre.

Sean Emmett only managed to last until lap twelve when his Renegade Ducati failed, but Reynolds managed to come back after a bad start fighting his way past Glen Richards on the Hawk Kawasaki to finish in third place.

Reynolds team-mate Yukio Kagayama had a bad start to the weekend. Two of the biggest crashes of his life on Friday and Saturday left him with broken ribs, a damaged ankle and a lot of bruises. Saturday’s crash was on superpole forcing him to start the races from 12th place on the grid.

Race one saw him fight back to fourth place by lap 16 but he slipped back to sixth after misjudging the apex at Russell Bend. He then had to pull out on lap 21 when he also had problems with his rear tyre.

Before the start of race two the decision was taken to shorten the race to only 20 laps after a number of riders including Byrne, Kagayama, and Reynolds finished the first race with tyres that were nearly shredded to pieces. Dunlop were sure that it was a sudden change in track temperature that caused the problems but the race was shortened just to be on the safe side.

Reynolds got a fantastic start in race two but had dropped down to fourth place by lap three leaving Shane Byrne to take the lead with Rutter and Emmett close behind.

Michael Rutter went down on lap 13 leaving the way clear for Byrne to pull away and win by nearly 10 seconds. Rutters departure also knocked Reynolds up from fourth, giving him his second podium finish of the weekend.

Steve Hislop was still struggling to get to grip with his Virgin Mobile Yamaha R1 pulling in to the pits on lap 12 of the first race and then again on lap 9 in the second race. As soon as Hizzy rode in to the garage in race two, team chief Rob MacElnea pulled down the shutter to let the fuming rider cool down.

MacElnea said: ” Hizzy’s just not confident with the bike yet. He crashed here in tests and has had a couple of scares here today so he didn’t feel comfortable carrying on. ”

Despite Hislop’s poor performance, his team-mate Gary Mason put in a good show with an eighth in the first race and a fourth in the second.

Race 1:

1, M. Rutter: 28:09.817, 2, S. Byrne: 28:14.937, 3, J. Reynolds: 28:21.524, 4, S. Plater: 28:28.046, 5, G. Richards: 28:28.963, 6, J. Crawford: 28:29.012, 7, P. Young: 28:29.747, 8, G. Mason: 28:30.726, 9, S. Smart: 28:37.205, 10, J. Kirkam: 28:37.677.

Race 2:

1, S. Byrne: 22:18.701, 2, S. Emmett: 22:28.061, 3, J.Reynolds: 22:33.101, 4, G. Mason: 22:36.496, 5, Y. Kagayama: 22:41.753, 6, J. Crawford: 22:42.931, 7, M. Heckles: 22:47.452, 8, S. Plater: 22:47.829, 9, P. Young: 22:53.968, 10, S. Smart: 22.54.294.

Supersport

The British Supersport race provided a lot of action with the race having to be restarted after abig crash on the first bend in which at least twelve riders went down. The race was red flagged but restarted again from the grid 15 minutes later.

In the restarted race Stuart Easton got off to a good start with Renegade Ducati Rider Leon Haslam close behind. Haslam managed to slip past him on the first lap and Easton continued to slip down the field until he eventually pulled out on lap 12.

Chasing were Honda rider Michael Laverty and Kawasaki rider Rob Frost. With Easton out of the way Laverty managed to slip past Haslam to take first place on lap six.

Karl Harris fought back to challenge Frost for third place, eventually passing him on lap 14. He went on to finish in second behind Laverty after Haslam crashed out on lap 16, loosing the front end trying to take Laverty’s first place. Haslam remounted and limped home in 15th place.

The Valmoto Triumphs of Craig Jones and Jim Moodie managed to keep together throughout the race eventually finishing in 7th and 8th place.

Times:

1, M. Laverty: 25:42.368, 2, K. Harris: 25:44.188, 3, R. Frost: 25:45.808, 4, A. Coates: 25:49.400, 5, S. Andrews: 25:49.488, 6, J. McGuinness: 26:07.002, 7, C. Jones: 26:12.582, 8, J. Moodie: 26:12.718, 9, T. Tunstall: 26:12.931, 10, C. Ramsay: 26:14.489.