Beverley’s James Westmoreland competed in round nine of the British Superbike Championship held around the Silverstone Circuit onboard the Gearlink Kawasaki, qualifying nineteenth with a 2min 07.6sec lap for the first of the weekend’s three races.
As the lights went green for the first race held on Saturday ‘Westy’ made a place up off the start and remained eighteenth until lap three before moving into seventeenth place.
For the remainder of the fourteen lap race he battled with those around him making up places through retirements and some good overtaking, he eventually crossed the line in fourteenth place.
Race two saw him start from sixteenth place, and had a slow start dropping back to twentieth. He battled on and made a few places up as Taylor McKenzie and Lee Jackson came together with Dan Linfoot getting caught up in the incident mid way round lap one. During lap two another couple of places were made up as Leon Haslam and Irwin crashed out.
With the retirements and making places up under his own steam he was now running in sixteenth by lap four.
Pushing hard to make up more places his progress was halted as lap nine saw Martin Jessopp and Andrew Reid crash out which brought out the safety car, while the marshalls attended to Jessopp.
Running in fourteenth place and two laps behind the safety car the decision was made to red flag the race after Shaun Winfield’s engine blew leaving oil on track.
The final race of the weekend ‘Westy’ started from eighteenth place. As racing got underway in heavy rain three riders had slid out by the end of lap four, but ‘Westy’ took it easy and kept his head.
By lap seven the conditions had become treacherous and riders were sliding out all over the place meaning , ‘Westy’ was advancing up the order mainly through the misfortune of others and some good passes.
By lap nine he had moved up into fourth place with only seven riders left on track in a race of attrition.
Lap ten saw the red flag come out as two thirds of the race had been completed, meaning ‘Westy’ had his highest finish of the season.
He will be in action again on 15th-17th September around the Oulton Park International Circuit in Cheshire.
Report & Picture by David Holland
