Stunning Results for Centurion - Coops starts at the back but fought hard and bag deserved points.
Having already qualified at the beginning of April, before the race was abandoned due to heavy snow, the Centurion duo had put their Honda’s in 12th, Westy and 20th, Cooper on the grid. The race initially was the opening round of the Championship and the two were struggling to get to grips with their new Pirelli tyres and therefore were unable to place themselves higher on the starting grid.
In the two hot practice sessions on Saturday they were flying and were setting some extremely fast lap times with Westy setting the third quickest time in the second practice session and Cooper in sixth, it was looking likely that they would be able to make the best of their low qualifying positions.
In an action packed race, which saw the safety car deployed on two occasions they were able to make the most of the 18-lap battle and score two solid results for the Centurion Racing team. The safety car was despatched on the first lap after two separate crashes involving various riders at Paddock Hill and also Druids corner. The riders lined up in formation waiting for the lights on the car to be turned off.
The race got underway again on lap three and Westy was through to 12th on lap four and Cooper had slipped back to 18th place. Westy was making huge progress through the pack and was up to seventh by lap nine with Cooper in 17th position. The safety car was once again called out on lap 11 when Chris Martin and Aaron Walker crashed out in two different incidents. Cooper was making the most of the falling riders in front of him and he was eagerly pushing his way through the pack and getting up to 13th by lap 14 and was eyeing up a top ten finish. He was locked in a tight battle with Andy Weymouth and Paul Young for ninth place and only 0.2 split the trio as they reached the chequered flag where he gained 11th. Westy pushed hard and made some unbelievable passing manoeuvres around the outside of Clearways and the outside of Paddock Hill, both times pulling the moves off and making tidy passes on Craig Fitzpatrick and BJ Toal, sealing him a well earned fourth position.
James Westmoreland was delighted with his result saying “I’m so pleased for the team that we have managed to achieve what we did today. It’s been a long time coming, I gained a fourth place last year at Thruxton and it’s a really nice feeling being there again. I’m eager for these results to carry on for the rest of the season and there should be no reasons why I can’t make that happen. I love Donington Park and it would be good to be fighting at the front end again there. I really enjoyed the scrap and thanks again to all the guys at Centurion Racing for working so hard.”
Dan Cooper commented “Considering my poor qualifying position it’s great to be pushing with the boys and fighting for a top ten position. We’d not had much track time when we came here in April and it was taking me a little while to get used to the new tyres and dusting up on my riding skills again. I was running really well in practice here and it was a shame we’d already qualified as I think I would have got an even better result if I’d not started from 20th on the grid. I’m really pleased for the team as they’ve all been working really hard and it would be good to continue this into the next races.”
General Manager/Team Owner Paul Rees said “Westy and Dan pushed hard this weekend knowing that they had to salvage a result from the qualifying positions they attained in April. Some good clean ’scraps’ were had on the track as they moved there way through the pack. Exciting to watch them both out there and there will be many more of those results coming our way with the new improvements to the bikes that the engineers are working so hard at. Gary Stubbington (Race Manager) and myself would like to thank all the support and messages received from the people who follow us as a team, and this is what it is all about, team work. Congratulations to all”.
Race Result
Hudson Kennaugh Yamaha
Glen Richards Triumph
Steve Brogan Honda
James Westmoreland Centurion Racing Honda
BJ Toal Yamaha
Craig Fitzpatrick Yamaha
Ian Hutchinson Yamaha
Marty Nutt Yamaha
Andy Weymouth Yamaha
Paul Young Triumph
Dan Cooper Centurion Racing Honda
Championship Positions
1 Richards 65
2 Kennaugh 58
3 Brogan 52
9th Westmoreland 19
12th Cooper 14
-END-
2008 Races (see calendar or above rounds for further info)
Round 4 - 24th - 26th May - Donington Park, Leics
Round 5 - 13th - 15th June - Snetterton, Norfolk
Round 6 - 27th - 29th June - Mallory Park
Round 7 - 18th - 20th July - Oulton Park, Cheshire
Round 8 - 8th - 10th August - Knockhill, Fife
Round 9 - 23rd - 25th August - Cadwell Park, Lincs
Round 10 - 12th - 14th September - Croft, North Yorkshire
Round 11 - 26th - 28th September, Silverstone, Northants
Round 12 - 10th - 12th October - Brands Hatch Indy, Kent
-END-
Carly Rathmell
Freelance Sports PR
