The penultimate round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship was a mixed bag at Oulton Park being on the back end of storm Amy. However, for the C & L Fairburn Properties Look Forward Honda racing team and Billy McConnell it proved a positive one. Billy secured an 8th, 10th and 14th place respectively.
Friday was a wash out and track time was limited; Billy also suffered a problem with the Honda forcing them to miss the new pre qualifying session. The conditions were not much better on Saturday and Billy just missed out on getting into Q2 and started race one from 16th. As always, this time of the year it was tyre choice / gamble time and thankfully they picked well with full wets for race one on Saturday. Billy got a flying start and carved his way through the pack finishing in a fantastic 8th place.
He was placed in 12th for race two on Sunday, another amazing start saw him up there in the early stages and fighting for a podium, again in mixed conditions. He had a small slide off and in the same lap the race was red flagged due to a massive oil contamination of the circuit. The BSB team worked incredibly hard over several hours to get 120 metres of contaminated track cleaned up, they did an amazing job fixing it and getting the racing back underway. Billy was fortunately allowed to re-start, and he was locked in a group of 9 riders for a podium place, eventually crossing the line in 10th.
He was due to start from 9th for the final race of the weekend but suffered a wiring loom problem and the team quickly got this fixed, but he was forced to start from the back of the grid. With very little dry track time he worked hard to make up several positions on the opening laps. He dug deep over the remaining laps and fought for some more Championship points in 14th.
Billy – “All-in-all it was a good weekend; we showed some good pace. I did my fastest ever time around Oulton, which is positive, even starting from the back! The team worked well as we had one new team member, and everything fell into place, and we scored more points this weekend than any other race this season. I want to end the season at Brands on a high, with the team finishing I’d like us to finish on a good result for everyone involved.”
Chris Fairburn – “Despite the horrendous weather conditions this weekend it seemed to work out well for us. Billy secured several Championship points with some strong results that we’ve been chasing all season; it was good to see his old form.
Brands Hatch will be the teams last meeting at BSB, we want to thank everyone involved in helping us get to this point, the team, sponsors, Billy and all at MSVR. It’s been a fantastic journey, and we’ve made some great memories along the way, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the involvement of some great people, and we are very grateful for that support over the year. Thank you!”
