Disappointing weekend for Samsung Superbike Team at Oulton Park.

The Samsung Suzuki Superbike and Ducati Superstock team had a fruitless outing at Oulton Park for round eight of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship and the Metzeler National Superstock Championship. In the Superbike class they suffered a double DNF and then the Superstock race was cancelled due to heavy rain making conditions on track too dangerous to continue.

Superbike rider Dean Thomas was unable to compete due to his cracked ribs not being sufficiently healed so his Superstock team-mate Sean Emmett once again stepped into the breach. Thomas explained, “I went out in the rain on Friday and that was fine, I could do all the laps I needed to do. Then I went out in the dry for six or seven laps and my ribs were playing up, it has only been two weeks since I cracked them so I think they are just not ready. Even though rain was predicted for race day, if it rained “Yes” I could ride but if it dried out then there is no way I’d have lasted twenty laps. I had no option really but to step back and let Sean ride the bike.”

Once the decision was made, Emmett had to go out and qualify on the Superbike which was still running Thomas’ settings, “I had to go straight out and qualify on his settings so I was always going to be up against it. I qualified in twenty fourth and had to start from row six, but I got a great start and I was eleventh after the first lap, then the pace car came out due to a crash. I got going again after that I was up to tenth and feeling good, I think I was on for a good ride but I tipped off at Lodge,” he said.

Emmett had varied his line slightly and found a slippery section of track which caught him out, “I don’t know what happened, you’ve only got to be six inches off line here, sometimes if you go on a piece of tarmac you haven’t been on before you find out how slippery it is and first thing you know you are on your ear. It is disappointing,” said Emmett.

The team worked hard to rebuild the bike in time for race two but the mechanical gremlins were out in force as Emmett explained, “They rebuilt the bike and because of that we had a couple of glitches with the throttle bodies, it was jamming the throttle on. So I tried the second bike which had a clutch problem!”

The last opportunity for the team to have a result was in the Superstock race but the rain came down as the race started and it had to be halted just a few laps in. “I wanted to try and put a smile on my face and the team’s as well. But I actually pulled in two laps before it was red flagged because you could not see for the spray and there was loads of standing water. If someone had gone down no one would have seen them, they did the sensible thing in the end,” he finished.

The team are now looking to round nine at Mallory Park on the 20th- 22nd July, where Thomas is hoping to be fit to race.

Sean Emmett
Credit: Dave Caudwell, Monopics