Stunning Results for Injured Andrews
Despite carrying broken bones in his hand and a badly damaged
knee Simon Andrews put in a superb performance at round eight
of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship at the Scottish
Circuit of Knockhill. Andrews crashed last week during testing
at Mallory Park, in preparation for the World Superbike round
at Brands Hatch, sadly missing out on the chance to perform
at the World level, the youngster had a week to try and get
fit for Knockhill. After digging deep and battling through
the pain, he secured two solid results of an eighth and sixth
respectively.
Andrews on the Lloyds British backed Jentin Racing Team struggled
most of the weekend at Knockhill with the pain. With the track
only being a short 1.3-mile circuit, it proved very testing,
very physical and aggravated his injuries. Working hard with
the on site physios and icing his hand on every possible occasion
the 25-year-old from Evesham was not able to get a good qualifying
session on the very wet circuit and ended up in a low 19th
place on the grid.
Debating whether to race or not Andrews decided he would give
it a go and see how he performed in the first race. With the
ever changing weather conditions the first race was declared
wet but with a distinctive drying line the Jentin team opted
to use full slick tyres. Making a good start Andrews was 16th
at the end of the opening lap and each lap he was picking
off riders one by one, by lap 18 he was 10th; Billy McConnell
and Atsushi Watanabe had a coming together at the Hairpin
and this allowed Andrews to take a strong eighth place.
The second race became very similar to race one and once again
as the riders lined up on the grid the heavens opened and
the temperature dropped. Initially heading out on full wets,
Andrews gained a fantastic start and was 14th at the end of
the opening lap. After ten laps a crash involving three riders
caused the race to be red flagged and giving the riders the
opportunity to change tyres for the 20-lap re-start. Opting
for an intermediate front and rear tyre, he again gained a
great start and was in eighth at the end of the first lap.
Fighting hard Andrews was having on track battles with James
Ellison and Leon Camier, eventually getting the better of
Camier. On lap 14 the race was red flagged again, after Shakey
Byrne crashed out at the first corner, allowing Andrews to
secure a fantastic sixth place and he was also awarded the
Airwaves 'Kick up a Gear' award.
Commenting Andrews said "I'm really
pleased with the results I got this weekend as I really didn't
know if I would be able to ride. I must say thanks to the
CJ Physios (www.cjnine.com) in the medical centre for helping
me out so much over the last couple of weekends, I really
appreciated it. It was actually worse to ride the bike in
the wet as it really made my hand swell up so I was hoping
for dry races but we got a bit of both. The weather at Knockhill
always seems to prove a bit of a problem and you never really
know what it's going to do. I'm pleased I could get the results
I did for the Jentin team as they all worked extremely hard
over what was a difficult weekend. I'm feeling a little second
hand now but hopefully I will be fighting fit for Cadwell
Park in a couple of week's time.
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