British Super Bikes - Cadwell Park

27 - 29 Aug 2022

The seventh round of the British Super Bikes Championships held over the August bank holiday weekend at Cadwell Park is always a special event in BSB and my calendar.  Being my home round I will inevitably be track side for the full three days with the rest of the fans who turn up every year in large numbers for the Party in the Park.

MSV are never very forthcoming with the number of spectators at Cadwell but it’s usually north of 30000, and this year it seemed to me to be a lot more than that by a good margin. 

Those spectator numbers are quite impressive and only surpassed by the final round of the year at Brands Hatch, so why do the fans turn out at what is not the most convenient track on the calendar to get to?

From my point of view it's all about the setting and not necessarily the racing, as the track is quite narrow and twisty, which doesn’t make for great racing and last-chance overtakes like we saw at Thruxton.

"Get on the front row at Cadwell and you have a good opportunity of getting on the podium" kind of sums it up. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good passing places at Cadwell but that front row is all important.

You can make it easy for the following riders to put in that all important overtake (undertake) by popping over to the PistonClick team for a quick fly-by on the grass like Jack Kennedy did mid race. 

So what makes Cadwell different to other tracks? There are quite a few different spots you can pick to watch the racing that are similar to other circuits. You can get very close to the action at Hall Bends like you can at Druids and Lodge at Oulton Park.

The huge spectator area around the Gooseneck gives you great views of large parts of the track like you get at Donington, but the one element of Cadwell that none of the other tracks have is the mountain.

The mountain has come to define Cadwell and make it stand out from all of the other tracks in the UK, making it the most popular spectator area on the BSB race calendar. The great news is that you can watch the spectacular action that the mountain delivers from quite a large area.

Two grandstands, the raised banking at the bottom, the banked area at the start/finish straight and the café area all give you great views, and more importantly, a great atmosphere as the crowd cheers on the riders as they launch off the top and put the hammer down heading into Hall Bends.

I think this is the main element that sells out the camping months before the event and draws in large crowds to watch the BSB gladiators do battle in the amphitheatre that is the mountain complex. There is nothing like it and usually it delights the crowd, but this year we saw quite few crashes which was unusual.

Lee Jackson crashed at the top on lap two of the opening race with his bike coming to rest on the track. Most of the pack avoided it ,but Takumi Takahashi clipped it and Dan Jones #44 hit it head on in a sickening crash resulting in a red flag.

Jones was air lifted to hospital and was diagnosed with concussion and a fractured collarbone lets hope he recovers quickly and is back on track soon.

There were quite a few other incidents that I witnessed at the mountain. Blaze Baker came off, Taz Mackenzie needed a change of underwear after an interesting landing, and even Josh Brookes lost it after a massive jump which was surprising as he is one of the best at taking on the mountain.

All this was whilst I was there and I didn’t hang around the mountain all weekend, but I did return for one rider that I wanted to capture taking on the mountain for the first time.

Toprak Razgatlioglu the WorldSBK champion was the guest of Yamaha, with his Pata Yamaha team-mate Andrea Locatelli performing a few demo laps of Cadwell for the fans.

It was to be their first ever time out on the Lincolnshire circuit and both treated the mountain with respect on the first two laps, but Toprak knew what we all wanted and delivered on his final lap to the roar of the fans.

So we have established that Cadwell is a fan favourite, but what about the riders? There are quite a few that live local to the track and know it well and usually demonstrate their knowledge of the mini Nürburgring by getting on the top step.

That was not to be this year  - Peter Hickman who has two firsts and a second last year posted up two sixths and a seventh place.

Lee Jackson #14, the former lap record holder and fastest plumber in Lincolnshire, ran middle order in the two races he completed.

Jason O'Halloran #22 who lives just 30 minutes from the track lost his lead in the championship to Bradley Ray #26 who was on it this weekend, posting a new lap record of 1:25.858 and claiming a first and two seconds.

One rider who does like the track and seems to always run well here is Tommy Bridewell, with three third places last year and two this year which has helped him in the showdown run in.

He is now in sixth place with only three riders confirmed - Ray, O'halloran and Rory Skinner. The next round at Snetterton will decide who the eight riders will be to compete for the title of BSB Champion 2022 over the last three rounds after Snetterton.

So let's take a quick look at the on-track action. This meeting was a little different to all of the other rounds so far, with a Superpole being run to determine the starting order of the top twelve who claimed their places after setting times in free practice one and two.

The remaining riders from P13 would take part in another fifteen-minute session, with the top three added to the final Superpole starting list of fifteen riders.

The Superpole is an excellent idea that has been used before, and had to be used at Cadwell due to it having two pits, one of which is just past the mountain.

The marshals releasing riders on to the track from the top pits would only have a few seconds to determine if it was safe to do so and it was a risk that race director Stewart Higgs quite rightly wasn’t going to take, so the riders were all released from the lower pits at two minute intervals. 

One sighting lap, followed by the riders giving their all to the accompaniment of music with big screen TVs showing the racing and the time sectors, added to the atmosphere.

There were some great classic rock tracks, but the biggest laugh of the day was when Tommy Bridewell went for it accompanied by "I've got a brand new combine harvester" great stuff.

Ray, Skinner and Jackson completed the front row followed by Buchan in fourth. Hickman 1.25. 997 and Tom Sykes 1.25.998 completed the second row.

Remember, Peter Hickman's 2021 lap record was 1:26.350  before Ray took it last weekend with a 1:25.858 while racing. Lap records can't be claimed in free practice or qualifying, so we can see how close and competitive the racing is this year. 

In the race one it was Ray, Skinner and Danny Buchan, who incidentally followed us in while driving in on the first day down all the little back roads to Cadwell, so he knew where he was going!

When we spotted him following us we had a chat about his performance this year. At no point did we consider him a contender for the "King of the Mountain". I don’t think many others did.

But what a performance the Essex rider put in, becoming the seventh individual BSB winner this session, with two firsts and a third over the weekend on the SYNETIQ Motorrad BMW R1000RR.

In race two and three it was Buchan, Ray and Bridewell. This has moved Buchan up to ninth in the championship,  just 14 points behind Kyle Ride who is desperately trying to hold on to the final eighth showdown place. 

We head off to Snetterton next weekend, 9 - 11th September to see who the final eight showdown riders will be, and as always the PistonClick team will be there to capture the pictures and ramble on about irrelevant subjects.

My chief editor did point out that no one reads this rubbish, they just want at look at the pretty pictures! Well I hope we have delivered on that aspect and we will endeavour to capture the action spectator side with the rest of the fans at Snetterton.

To end this report we will take a look at the True Heroes Racing Team who we are following this season. 

"Keeping British Forces Rehab.... ON TRACK" True Heroes Racing helps injured Service personnel regain a sense of direction through competitive motorsport. They not only get the guys out on track, but also support Service personnel and staff from the medical professions by hosting them at meetings. This is a truly valuable experience in the rehabilitation process, motivating them on the road to recovery by demonstrating the art of the possible though hard work and personal determination. 

Single arm amputee Chris Ganley continues to battle on with his quest to qualify in the Ducati Tri-Options Cup which he has done once this year, while team mates Charlie White qualified P15 and Leon Wilton P19 . Charlie gained a few places to finish in 11th place in both races while Leon after having a solid 19th in the first race had a technical issue which meant he had to retire early in race 2.

The team usually runs two riders In the Pirelli Stock 1000 race but only had a single representative Dave”Scrawn”Mackay at Cadwell who came home in 22nd place.

British Super Bikes Race 1

British Super Bikes Race 2

British Super Bikes Race 3