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 Mallory
Park British Superbikes 2006
Thomas happy with top ten finishes at Mallory.
Dean Thomas took his Hawk Kawasaki to two strong top ten finishes at
round
six of the Bennetts British Superbike championship at a sunny Mallory
Park.
He took eighth in race one despite the pace car coming out and ninth in
race
two. "It was quite difficult race one, obviously the new chicane was new
to
everybody so everybody was a little tentative into it, as it turned out
there was an incident there as well as one on the start finish straight,
so
the pace car was out pretty much straight away and that was the first
four
laps slowed down," he explained, "For me it was a decent race, finished
eighth which is about where we should be at the moment, we are
developing
the bike as fast as we can but we are just not quite getting there quick
enough. A realistic finish today was between eighth and tenth, we came
out
with an eighth and a ninth and I think that is pretty fair really."
Race two was less eventful but by no means was it a walk in the park for
Thomas, "I got a decent start again and I got away in about eighth or
ninth
anyway and Johnny Rea kept making a few mistakes as the race went on and
he
was my motivation really. Just to try and hang onto him and he kept
coming
back every now and then and then he'd pull away again, which just kept
dragging me on."
Thomas also had his former team-mate Glen Richards hounding him as he
went
on to say, "Plus I had Glen Richards on my heels the whole time and I
know
what he is like having raced with him last year I knew he would have a
charge with two laps to go so I put my head down with about three laps
to go
and thought right if I can break him now then I've got a chance and
lucky
enough I did and the result was a good result and we do need more
development with the bike. At this stage we are at now and eighth or a
ninth
is respectable."
The progress made by the team with the bike this weekend has boosted
Thomas'
confidence in the package, "It is encouraging. We have a very good
motorbike
on qualifying tyres but the instant you put it on a race tyre, once you
come
to mid distance it does deteriorate and wears the tyre out quite fast.
I've
spent a lot of time this weekend on second hand tyres trying to really
get
the bike to work on old tyres and it seems to have paid off. I think it
is
an area that we will continue to work with for the rounds to come and
see if we can get it consistently up there."
Round seven of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship take place at
Snetterton on the 16th -18th June.
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