BSB Round 3 Oulton Park - Seton Interceptor Yamaha Racing

The weekend at Oulton Park began with one team member in hospital, one trying to finish off his degree and the other racing elsewhere; it was defiantly going to be a weekend of everyone mucking in! With Oulton Park being Ben’s local circuit and personal favourite and both boys testing at there back in March the team looked set for a good result.  The weather was far from consistent, but it did look like the rain was going to hold off for the whole weekend.

First warm up in the dry went well for Helge, continuing to shave valuable seconds of each lap the entire team could see points heading our way, all we needed was the rain to hold off as the boys were confident that the set up was perfect.

Helge confirmed this by continuing to maintain consistent lap times and showing that every time his tyres hit the tarmac he inched ever closer to a top ten finish, sadly it was not meant to be after the rain came down hard at the start of the Supersport race and a few starts and stops Helge pulled into pit lane with a clutch issue.

A few words from Helge about Oulton Park....

I`ve been looking forward to Oulton Park to get out on the track again after the crash at Brands Hatch. Oulton is a very technical track so we knew that we just had to improve at every session and see how far it would take us. The team worked hard with the settings of the bike, and despite a partly punctured rear tire at Q1 which messed around with us a little bit, we found a good setting on the bike before the race. When it started to rain at the grid show before the race, and I was one of the fastest guys out there on the 7 minutes of extra training, I thought we would get rewarded for all the rain sessions we have had in the pre season. Unfortunately it seemed like I burned the clutch on the extra starts we got due to the restart of the race, so I just had to pull in at lap 1. This was a bit disappointing because I was hoping to give the team a good top 10 position, because everybody had put in so great effort during the whole weekend. At least we now that we are all the time taking steps the right way, and when we come back to Oulton in October we will make up for this weekend.

All hope now riding on Ben to give the team a good finish and with him getting his personal best on Sunday everyone wanted to see a good result. With friends and family stood in the awning looking out at a black sky, Ben commented on the weather and hoped that the rain would hold off unfortunately this was not going to be the case, we received confirmation that due to the late start of the BSB Ben’s race would be reduced to 10 laps and would start at 5.50, and with Oulton having a 6.30 curfew the clock was ticking. They headed out to the grid and the heavens opened with only two warm up wet laps and 10 days of wet testing behind the team in March there was a possibility that this could be a blessing, the race started and after a collision during the first lap the Metzeler Superstock 600 National Championship race was called of and postponed until further notice!

This is what Ben had to say about the weekend....

Oulton is my favourite circuit and my closest, I was really looking forward to riding there, and because we tested at Oulton back in March I felt that the team deserved a good finish and it was possible to get some points. I was really happy with qualifying and managed my PB during practise, and making up 7 places on the grid was a brilliant result for me, standing in the awning watching the black clouds rolling in didn’t even dishearten me, we had so much rain during testing that I could only see it as an advantage. I was sat on the grid confident that I was going to have a top ten finish I got a good start and then was devastated when we were called in due to the weather and postponed for another time! I want to say thank you to the team for all their hard work as always, and will see you all at Cadwell Park.

Philip Seton team owner said “we are very disappointed for Ben he put in an outstanding effort and was not given the chance to race at his favourite track.  We will just have to wait and see what happens at WSB when his race is re-run at Silverstone in August. Helge has also proved to be a very consistent rider and deserves a chance to finish but with unfortunate clutch issues hampering him we know that Cadwell will be our round, the entire team deserves it”

Thank you to everyone involved with Seton Interceptor Yamaha, from our team at the circuit to our sponsors, we could not do any of this without you. We are determined to move forward and learn from the last three races and make Cadwell our best round yet!

Seton Interceptor Yamaha Racing would like to say thank you to the following sponsors for all their support

Bike Interceptor, Seton Tuning, Panther Security Systems, Yamaha, Pirelli, Sparmax, Norske Skog, Asker MC, SPS, Aspire, Trodrud Engineering, TK Cope Moto, Motul, RST, HM Quickshifters, Esjot, Revolution Signs, Powder coatings Northern, Moto Coat, Motul, GPR, PFM, Venhill, Powerbronze, NGK, DID, SBS, K-Tech, Profibre, MHP and Sigma, GBRacing, Colchester Engineering Systems, ASNU, and Costaeye.com

Press release provided by Seton Tuning