Oil spill puts early end to motorbikers’ racing

Andrew Poat clocked a rapid 11.01 for runner-up spot in the 501-600cc bikes class and was happy with his day’s work. (Pictures by Steve Sarre, 0565784)

IT WAS a disappointing start to the sprint season for motorcyclists at Vazon on Saturday. Their competition was cancelled after only two timed runs because of spilt oil on the road.

But all the riders accepted it was the correct decision after a car had dropped its oil along their racing line. Louis Norman, who posted the fasted run of the day, 10.91, on his Suzuki GSXR750, said it was a matter of putting safety first.

‘If you look at the speeds that we are doing over the line, it’s just not safe because we would have been going across the oil. It’s a shame because if you look at the times, they were coming down and I had done a few suspension changes. Hopefully, if we had had a few other runs, I could have brought it down further.’

Clerk of the course Dave Le Cheminant made the decision.

‘I’ve taken a couple of the bike guys down the course and they didn’t fancy riding.

‘It’s bad just over the finishing line where most of them will be doing nearly 130mph.

‘The cars are OK because they can straddle it and we have had no complaints from them, but it’s unfortunately one of those things where the cars can still play but the bikes can’t.’

Tom Scott was the fastest in the 501cc to 600cc class on 10.92, ahead of Andrew Poat with 11.01. Both were riding a Suzuki.

Scott said if the bikes had carried on, something bad could have happened.

‘It could have gone pear-shaped. At 129mph you just don’t take that risk. It would happen so quickly that you wouldn’t have time to recover with the oil.’

But he was still pleased with his day’s work.

‘I’m really pleased with the time. I was pretty much on the limit today but I could have shaved a little bit more time off it, I think.’

Poat echoed those sentiments.

‘It would have been stupid to carry on because the oil was on the racing line for the bikes.

‘I could have gone a little faster but I’m fairly happy with how I did.’