Blackhorse Kawasaki came away from the penultimate round of the Metzeler
National Superstock 1000 Championship at Silverstone with Victor Cox's
tenth place only telling some of the story of both his and the team's
weekend.As in previous rounds, Cox was immediately on the pace and a steady run in Free Practice set him up nicely for Qualifying One. The session was red-flagged within two laps and on the re-start Victor quickly made his intentions clear when he went almost two seconds quicker from Free Practice to post a lap of 2m:12.99s to briefly top the session and put him well in the hunt for a high qualifying placing, however this was to be the last of his action for the day as he pulled out after only four laps with what was later diagnosed as a thrown rod on the Ninja ZX-10R.
The team rolled up their sleeves and worked well into the evening to put a spare engine into Victor's bike but it was certainly not the start to the weekend that neither he nor the team quite had in mind.
Despite this setback there was some consolation in that Victor's best lap was still good enough for 8th, despite missing well over half the session!
So on to the second qualifying session and Cox was soon back in the groove and he once more laid down an early benchmark time with a 2m:12.27s lap to again lead the session. Victor slipped to 10th in the latter stages but a final lap of 2m:11.90s, one of only nine riders to dip under the 2m:12s mark, enabled him to claw back another place and finish ninth for a third row start, but rueing his bad luck in the first session. Both he and team-mate Conor Cummins shared the third best time through the finish line speed trap.
The early morning light rain on Sunday had thankfully long since dispersed as the race got underway and as they came round to complete the first lap, Victor was in a four man group in 9th place with Taylor Knapp, Joe Dickinson and Joe Burns. On to the conclusion of the second lap and the Blackhorse Kawasaki teamster was gamely holding on to ninth but this time he had four riders for company in the form of Marshall Neill, Adam Jenkinson, Burns and championship leader Richard Cooper. Victor moved into 7th on the third lap but the see-saw battle continued as he slipped back to ninth on the next lap.
For the next four laps he became embroiled in a battle with Adam Jenkinson for ninth with the two continually swapping places. On the ninth lap Jenkinson finally moved clear with Daniel Johnson demoting Cox to 11th but on the next lap Victor fought back to pass Johnson and hold on to finish in the top ten.
Joint second quickest through the Sector One speed trap, Victor's tenth place has consolidated his 7th position in the championship with one round to go at Brands Hatch in two weeks time.
Manxman Conor Cummins was left frustrated on Sunday
when he just missed out on the points. Competing on the Silverstone GP
circuit for the first time, Conor finished in
18th place for, amazingly, the fifth time this season so was
disappointed not to have added to his tally of Championship points.Having missed the corresponding meeting 12 months ago due to recovering from the injuries sustained in his Isle of Man TT crash, Conor set about learning the 3.6-mile circuit during practice as well as trying to find a good set-up with the ZX-10R Kawasaki.
Reducing his lap times in each and every session, he ended qualifying in 25th place to head off the seventh row. A good start to the 11-lap race saw Conor leap up the order to lie in 20th place at the end of the first lap and although he briefly slipped back to 21st he was back up to 19th at the end of the fourth lap. This soon became 17th as he overhauled both Jonathan Railton and Michael O'Brien but that was as high as he was able to climb as a major front wheel slide saw him drop back to 20th two laps later. He managed to climb back up to 18th at the chequered flag but was left frustrated as to how his race had gone.
Speaking later, Conor said: "Having missed the meeting last year, it was tricky learning the circuit as it seemed that only the first and last corners were the same and I struggled all weekend to get the bike to handle how I wanted it to. The race itself was going ok though up until the mid-race point when I had a huge slide which nearly had me off. I managed to save it with my knee but that told me that I was riding over the limit so I decided to stick with a pace that wasn't going to see me crash out."
"The last 3 meetings have seen me suffer a number of front end issues and it's what's holding me back at the minute. I can't hit my apexes and so am having to scrub off speed on the way in to the corner just to make it round so it's frustrating for all of us as the whole team are working their backsides off to try and sort it out - the effort going into the job is superb. At the end of the day it was another finish and I have to keep reminding myself that this is what the year's all about."
Meanwhile, Blackhorse Kawasaki manager/rider Ian Lougher had a busy time at Silverstone. As well as overseeing team matters, Ian enjoyed an outing on the Team Repli-Cast UK Racing 125cc machine in the latest round of the highly competitive Sunoco British 125GP Championship. 15th at the end of the first lap, Ian ran in the top twenty for most of the race and a strong second half took him to the fringe of a place in the points. A big word of thanks goes to Gary Dawson of Repli-Cast UK.
Photo:
Victor Cox and Blackhorse Kawasaki team technician Norman Rank.
Conor Cummins on the Blackhorse Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R.
Courtesy:
Clive Challinor Motorsport Photography.