British Superbikes - Oulton Park - Round 9

Report by Michael Clarke - Images by Michael Clarke, Scott Grant and David Harbey

13th - 15th September

PistonClick had three photographer’s trackside for the latest round of the British Superbike Championship, all of their images were taken from the view point of the spectator. Round 9 of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship was held last weekend at the picturesque Oulton Park circuit for the first of the showdown rounds. 

Showdown 2024

Before we get into the report let’s have a brief explanation about the showdown and how they affect the last three rounds of the Championship.

The showdown has been changed and modified over the years, the idea behind it is to keep the fight for the Championship going to the last round. Before the introduction of the showdown if a team dominated early in the season they could have been crowned BSB champion with a few rounds to go. To prevent that happening the showdown rounds were introduced, this is the criteria for 2024. 

• Across the Main Season comprising of twenty-four races so far, points have been awarded to the top 15 riders on the scale of 18-16-14-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1.

• For the Showdown events the points value per race will increase. At Oulton Park and Donington Park, the points will be: 25-22-20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1.

• For the traditional season finale at Brands Hatch on the GP Circuit, the points value per race will increase again to: 35-30-27-24-22-20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2.

• The rider with the most points accumulated across the season will be crowned Bennetts BSB Champion.

Situated in the Cheshire countryside Oulton Park is known for its changeable weather conditions and this weekend did not disappoint! It was a weekend of two halves the Saturday delivered perfect conditions for racing and the Sunday the complete opposite with torrential downpours leading to delayed proceedings.

However, once the rain did subside and the sweepers went out on track to clear the standing water that had pooled in areas of the track, racing did eventually get underway and made for some unpredictable nail-biting action.

Qualifying

It was an exciting qualifying as Glenn Irwin set the early pace but had to pull off the circuit with a technical issue and that was his qualifying session ended early and had to settle for the front of the second row in 4th. Tommy Bridewell then took the top spot and it looked like he may stay there however with 2 minutes left on the clock Josh Brookes put together a lap to put the FHO Racing BMW in top spot. 

Brookes was on track for his first pole position of the year but Kyle Ryde wasn't finished and with the chequered flag flying he put in a sensational final sector and left his best lap for his last lap topping the time sheet by only 0.040s.

BSB Race 1

The first race of the showdown and it was a dramatic first lap as #25 Josh Brookes led the pack ahead of Kyle Ryde and Tommy Bridewell, However, Bridewell went crashing out at Hislops and with that saw a big loss of points for his title defence this year in what was his first real mistake of the championship.

#2 Glenn Irwin made a move on Ryde on lap three moving up to second place, then at one of his favourite overtaking spots, Hisplops, out braked #25 Brookes to take the lead.

Near the end of lap three Danny Buchan had an almighty high side coming out of lodge corner and was lucky to not be collected by another rider as he lay on the circuit he was subsequently ruled unfit for the remainder of the weekend. #86 Charlie Nesbitt who was showing some real pace took a tumble out of 4th place at Hislops on lap five.

The lead trio were closely matched up until lap eleven when Ryde had to remove the dash cover from his bike that had come loose and lead to him losing ground on the front two. #21 Christian Iddon then slid out of eighth place on lap twelve possibly ending his championship title hopes.

Ryde soon got back into a rhythm and gained ground on Brookes and Irwin also dragging Lee Jackson along with him, Lap fifteen on the exit of Lodge saw Brookes make a move on Irwin but he ran deep and this allowed Irwin back through and Kyle Ryde also took advantage taking second place and Jackson moved past to take the third from Brookes.

Lap sixteen Ryde block passed Irwin heading into Hislops and held the positions to the finish taking his first podium since Snetterton, Irwin held off Jackson for second while Jackson denied Brookes his first podium of the season to take the final podium position.

BSB Race 2

The second race of the weekend and to say it was a wet one would be an understatement. The race was delayed to wait for conditions to improve, and the track to be cleared of standing water, but conditions were still challenging to say the least.

Kyle Ryde took the lead initially but found himself falling back through the pack, Irwin hit the front from Haslam and Iddon. On lap three Iddon made a move at Island Bend on Irwin to take the lead but this was short-lived as on the exit of Shell Oils had a slip-off which caused Irwin to take avoiding action dropping him to 6th place, This gifted Leon Haslam the lead with Bridewell in second and Lee Jackson in third place.

One of the men on the move was #8 Lewis Rollo who always thrives in these wet weather conditions and by lap four saw him sitting in 4th position on lap five setting the fastest lap of the race being a full second a lap quicker than the leader.



After tussling it out with Bridewell for second place for a few laps this led to Glenn Irwin to capitalise and passing both on lap seven at Island Bend as Rollo ran it wide and almost ended up on the grass.

On the final lap, it was a three-horse race for victory with Haslam, Irwin, and Danny Kent. #2 Irwin made his move on Haslam at Hislops out breaking Haslam, Haslam was not willing to give the position up and ended up going straight on handing second place to Danny Kent and the win to Glenn Irwin. Bridewell held off Rollo for fourth.

BSB Race 3

The third and final race of the weekend was declared a wet race although parts of the circuit were dry so most riders opted for intermediate tyres with a couple rolling the dice and choosing slick rears.

Vickers got a great launch off the line to put him in the lead on the opening lap followed by Irwin and Haslam. By lap three Vickers had created a dominant lead by over 3 seconds with Storm Stacey charging through to second who had also gapped the field by some margin, with Haslam in third and Brookes a close fourth.

Near the end of lap three heading into Lodge Corner Vickers made a very costly mistake and went down into the gravel trap, which may now be the end of his title charge. This left Storm Stacey in the lead with a big gap of almost four seconds back to Leon Haslam.

The weather didn't want to play ball though and it started to rain again, As Brookes moved up ahead of Haslam before crashing out on lap six at druids. This gave second position to Haslam who was on intermediates front and rear and Tommy Bridewell in third with a slick rear! Storm Stacey who had bolted away at the front had chosen a wet front which what a great decision that was!

Lap eight saw Lewis Rollo lock the front and go down at Hislops which left mud scattered on the circuit, Fraser Rodgers then locked the front and went down at the same place and this brought out the red flag, At this point of the race Storm Stacey was sixteen seconds in the lead.

When the organisers decided to restart the race it was a five lap dash. Stacey immediately left off where he finished and led the opening lap from Bridewell, Haslam was sitting in third but made a mistake at druids that let Ryde move up to third.

Lap two #77 Ryde made his move on #1 Bridewell into second place and got a great drive out of lodge corner to power past Storm Stacey into Old hall corner, the lead trio had broken away from the rest of the pack with Haslam in fourth with a queue of riders behind him.

Lap four Bridewell made an overtake on Stacey into old hall corner which was a carbon copy of Rydes move on Stacey the lap before. On the final lap Kyle Ryde had a commanding lead which saw him take victory ahead of Tommy Bridewell and Storm Stacey with Max Cook crossing the line in fourth. 

With six races left of the season, this is how the championship standings are stacking up, It is now looking like a three-horse race for the championship although you can't rule out Christian Iddon completely. Let's hope it stays this close right down to the final race at Brands Hatch!

BSB SuperStock

BSB SuperStock Race 1

BSB SuperStock Race 2

#3 Adam Brown Racing – HEL Peformance SuperSport Cup ROKiT Rookies Kawasaki Oulton Park Race Report 

In the first two free practice sessions I was struggling to do anything on the bike, when I tried to push it all started to go wrong. In Fp2 I got into 1.42s lap times effortlessly, but when I tried for another few tenths I kept losing rear grip off throttle and the most horrible chatter I’ve ever experienced.

I put this down to me over riding instead of letting it come to me! Qualifying ended in the same way with me left scratching my head not knowing why or what I was doing wrong!

We didn’t get out for race1 and at this stage I was ready to get the next Stenaline home with no hope or fight left in me for the weekend!

The team wouldn’t let me give up and stripped the bike from head to toe trying to find the problem. After stripping the bike and a lengthy study of the data on Saturday evening we found no bent parts but a badly worn out slipper clutch. This was causing the bike to chatter uncontrollably, we got the problem sorted and I said we will give race 2 a go.

Race 2 we started from dead last as I hadn’t set a time in race 1 but it was about to all come good. I made up 13 places from where I started, finishing 25th in Supersport and setting the fastest lap of the Cup race with a 1:49 in very sketchy conditions. This lifted a massive weight off my shoulders and showed me never ever give up on something you want!

I can only thank the team, ROKiT Rookies Ronnie, Scott, Davy and Dom for sorting my bike out! I hope I have done the team, mum and dad proud for the pull through in the last race, because I’m proud of it myself after what was looking to be a right off weekend. 

BSB SuperSport Race 1

BSB SuperSport Race 2

Photographic Post Scrip - Photographing the British Superbikes from a different angle.

At Oulton Park we had three spectator photographers track side, David Harbey talks about his experience.

This member of the PistonClick team was travelling light for the Saturday of the three-day BSB weekend at Oulton Park. One D850, one 70-200mm zoom and one 1.7x teleconverter. No monopod or step and only one small rucksack. Would it work out – yes, it would (it was the dry sunny day) ! Whilst I have taken the usual side on panning, head on line of riders or wheelie shots as evidenced here, I also tried to take some different angles during the day.

Let’s start with the through the crowd shot taken at 1/200^th / 105mm / f5.6 / 7 frames per second. I usually use back button focusing, but this time I had pre-focused on the track and left the back button alone. Tracking the rider and shooting was a bit of a suck it and see, and not the shots had the rider in clear sight – this one did!

I love a slow shutter speed panning shot and like Snetterton, Oulton Park has easy access to do this with the pit garages in the background. At some of the more high profile race meetings, additional advertising is installed. In some cases, it forms a cool background instead of concrete wall or fence, but sometimes it gets in the way of the image.

For this shot at 1/200^th / 70mm / f9 I concentrated on the upper half of bike and rider for something a little different. I had to stand at the back of the raised spectator banking to get the armco and adverting at the desired level. This was early on Saturday qualifying so it wasn’t too busy with spectators.

Many of my panning shots will have the subject just off centre – leaving room for it “to move into”. Sometimes it’s interesting to take to extremes placing the subject right in the corner.  This is taken at 1/160^th / f10 / 135mm with the focus point set bottom right of the frame.

A similar shot here as the riders approach the end of the lap at Deer Leap with a little Dutch Tilt for interest (and to take out the armco and tyres)  – 1/100^th / f7.1 / 70mm.

A trio of shots at the exit of Druids and taken through the trees. These are very hit and miss, so, again 7 frames per second but not pre-focused this time. 1/250th / f5 or f2.8 / 200mm. I tend to set ISO manually on shutter priority and leave the aperture to sort itself out, which is perhaps not the correct way. It’s fair to say that shooting fast motorbikes through trees does lead to only a few “keepers”

It is always worth turning round. Having seen Bridewell go down at Knickerbrook on the first lap, I could see him climb over the fence to the spectator area where the “courtesy bike” came to pick him up to return him to the pits. This uses internal roads which meant that they passed behind us at the exit of the corner. Likewise Christian Iddon after he went down at Brittens.

I hope that you find this interesting. I tend to leave my photos at a 3:2 or 1:1 aspect ratio. There is no doubt that some panning shots, at least, would benefit from a letterbox aspect ratio of 3:1 that I tend to use for PistonClick report header and footer images.

DH

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