Map Embassy today returned to the scene of our best result of the season so far. Since our first visit to Oulton Park earlier in the year, Glen Richard’s ‘round the outside’ move on Hudson Kennaugh on the last corner of the Oulton circuit has become legendary. Due mostly to the battle the pair had not only on that classic final lap, but the whole race and the fact that it gave Glen his first win of the season, which surprisingly remains his only one of the year to date. However, Glen has only failed to make the podium once this season when he finished 5th in the last round at Mallory Park but still leads the Supersport Championship, closely followed by Hudson Kennaugh of Yamaha Raceways.
Keen to put Mallory Park’s disappointing results behind us, we set about it early on during the free practice sessions at Oulton today. Early in the first session, the Supersport pair of Glen and Paul took it steady, due to a wet track that was drying from a short downpour minutes earlier. However, as the circuit slowly dried our riders quickly picked up the pace and finished the session in P1 and P3, with Glen clinching the top spot. Sandwiched in-between the Map Embassy pair was Hudson Kennaugh.
With similar conditions affecting the second practice session we were delighted to see Paul in second place and then climb up to P1. It got even better for us down in the pit lane when we watched Glen quickly climb up the timing screen to steal P1 from Paul. Still, with Map Embassy riders taking up the top two positions there were smiles all around the garage. By the end of the session Paul had slipped to 9th whilst Glen managed to hold on to P1.
Chief Race Mechanic Colin Davies was extremely pleased with what he saw
“With the strange conditions it was good to see both of the guys on top form out there. We have showed today that the bikes and both riders have the ability to be up in the top three or four and I know that the team would be delighted if we could get two riders on the podium this weekend.”
Check the site later for the latest news on Superstock 600 Rider AJ Venter’s first qualifying session which takes place at 4:00pm.
