Daytona dominates at Oulton Park

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

MAP Embassy Racing’s young South African rider Allan Jon Venter got the day of to a great start by winning the Superstock 600 race by almost four seconds, before his Australian team-mate Glen Richards turned in a virtuoso performance to take his second win of the year in the supersport event. The fast and flowing Cheshire has proved happy hunting ground for Triumph, with Richards having also won May’s round at the same venue.

With eight of the 13 rounds now gone, Richards leads closest rival Hudson Kennaugh by 25 points. In the Superstock 600 class, for virtually standard bikes, Venter moves into joint third in the standings – just 12 points from the championship lead.

While it was a great weekend in the UK, the final points tally did not match the effort of the Triumph teams in the Supersport World Championship round at Brno, in the Czech Republic.

After ending first qualifying in the top 10, Triumph-SC’s Garry McCoy looked set for one of his best results of the season, only to be ruled out after a crash in the Saturday morning warm-up. The Australian collided with another rider and is expected to be out for a couple of months after suffering back and rib injuries.

Fellow countryman Mark Aitchison looked like continuing his super form on the BE1-entered Daytona. Starting from sixth on the grid, the 24-year-old was running in seventh when he crashed out on lap seven. That left his BE1 team-mate Ivan Clementi to maintain Triumph’s 100% points scoring record with 13th at the flag.

In France, Baptiste Guittet scored a fine sixth place in his national championship round at Magny Cours on his Daytona 675.