MCE BSB 2011 Round 3 Croft #1

Round 3 of the British Superbike championship from oop north at Croft near Darlinton provided us with yet more drama and emotion for all those involved. The 2.1 miles circuit mostly built on world war ii runways has a historic heritage that flew Lancasters and Halifax bombers originally and in more recent years has even seen the likes of Damon Hill, Barry Sheene and even Nicki Lauda! Now John Hopkins adds his name to that illustrious list, what he makes of the circuit after all the purpose built state of the art tracks around the globe I must find out.. A day of contrasts for Shane Byrne and Jon kirkham with a win and dnf, Gary Mason getting his first BSB podium after 9 years of trying showing how much it means to him in the post race interview with Tony Carter. The weather threw a spanner in the works on raceday for race 1 causing a lottery with tyre choice, a decision I do not envy for any team or rider and inevitably it worked out for some but it changes the leader board for the championship, ironically since the introduction of the new points scoring system designed to stop runaway winners we have had a close fought championship. The other class of interest for me is Superstock 1000, another close fought battle that looks like going down to the last round with the 3 main protagonists on the podium and Danny Buchan making an outrageous outside overtake into the Complex for 3rd and then telling me he had no grip afterwards! Since Croft it was bad news to hear about Stuart Easton suffering multiple injuries during practice for the NW200, a long way off but a full recovery would be nice to hear.