Bennets British SuperBikes Round 8 Support Races - Cadwell Park 

Report by David Gowshall of :DEEGEE: Motorsports Photography 

Images by Scott Grant, Michael Clark, David Gowshall and RPW Photography

 24^th – 26^th August 2024

Our last photographic motorsport report focused on the headline British SuperBikes at Round 8 of the BSB Championship held at Cadwell Park. To follow up that report we will look at the support races, which were running along side the SuperBikes over the August bank holiday weekend. 

The support classes present at the meeting included the Supersports, Superstocks, Sportbike and BMW F900R Cup championships.

Supersport - The middleweight class for typically 600cc machines

After the two Supersport races held over the weekend the top three riders #8 Luke Stapleford (Macadam Triumph), #4 Jack Kennedy (Honda Racing UK) and #1 Ben Currie (Oxford Products Ducati), are separated by just six points.

Kennedy (Race 1), having set a new class Lap record, and Currie (Race 2) crashed out whilst battling for top spot with Stapleford, who took advantage of his rival’s misfortune to record two vital wins.

As a result Stapleford now leads the championship table with 307 points from Kennedy on 306 and Currie on 301 points. I’ve no doubt their rivalry will continue over the next three rounds of the championship, with the title unlikely to be decided until the final meeting of the year at Brands Hatch.

#3 Adam Brown Racing - HEL Performance Supersport Cup ROKiT Rookies Kawasaki

The PistonClick team have been following Adam Brown from his debut in the HEL Performance Junior Supersport on the 7th April 2023. Adam has moved up for the 2024 season to the Supersport Cup, a class within the Supersport Championship. This is his race report from Cadwell. 

Overall Cadwell went well, I made a massive step forward this weekend, it felt like something just clicked. We decided to sit out FP1 as the conditions were awful and nothing like what we were going to race in. During FP2 we had some valuable dry laps before the rain came back and I made a massive step closer to the front in this session.

In qualifying I had a really unexpected and unfortunate coming together with another rider, this caused me to crash at the end of the back straight on lap 2. Fortunately I had done enough on my first flying lap to make the grid and start the race.

Race 1 we started further back than I would have liked so my focus was a good lap time, which I achieved placing me P26, and moving me further up the grid for race 2.

Race 2 I got an amazing start running P20 for the whole race with pace to be in the top 15. Unfortunately I made a mistake on the last lap causing me to go down at the mountain. I was gutted as this was a massive step for me and a great turn around for the end of the season.

However, as a team we will take the positives out of it as we know I’ve the pace and the bike to be closer to the front, now we just carry our momentum into Oulton and the remainder of the season.

Superstock - Stock 1000cc sport bikes homologated by the original manufacturer with limited modifications.

The Superstock championship looks like it will also be a nail-biter after the weekend’s exploits with #19 Joe Talbot on his INTRADISC Honda closing to within one point of #74 Davey Todd (Cheshire Mouldings BMW), after beating his championship rival by just 0.2 seconds in a thrilling race.

The pair swopped the lead several times but an overtake by Talbot on the penultimate lap proved to be decisive, with Todd hampered somewhat by lapped riders, unable to respond. Third place went to local favourite Tim Neave at his home round on his MasterMac Honda.

Sportbike - A new class for the 2024 season, machines racing are the Yamaha R7, Aprilia RS660, Kawasaki Ninja 650 and Honda Hornet 750.

The Sportbike Championship also looks destined for a last meeting showdown following the weekends racing with #13 Italian Edoardo Columbi, in his very first race at Cadwell, triumphing over veteran #47 Richard Cooper to take his lead in the championship to 4.5 points.

The race was originally red flagged after a nasty looking accident at the top of The Mountain, in which fortunately all those involved escaped unscathed.

It looked like a being a leisurely victory for Cooper who initially built up a large gap to the remaining field, but Columbi picked up the pace from half-distance, reeling in his experienced contender rapidly to take a remarkable victory. Third was Thomas Strudwick on the Triumph Daytona 660 by TS Racing.

BMW F900 R Cup - All riders are on identical 105hp F 900 R Roadsters.

Finally, the BMW F900 R Cup Championship, which took what could be a significant turn over what was a busy weekend for the BMW competitors. Thomas Strudwick extended his lead in the championship after his main rival Nikki Coates crashed out on the very last corner of the very last lap, and is increasingly looking like taking the title as a result.

Round 9 of the Bennets British Superbike Championship heads to Oulton Park for the first “Showdown” round 13 - 15 September. The PistonClick team will be there to capture all of the action and see if Adam Brown can carry his new found momentum into the last three meetings.

You can find all of our previous PistonClick British SuperBike reports below.