Oulton BSB: Shakey makes amends in race two

Shane Byrne made up for a race one DNF with a hard fought battle for the win in race two from title rivals Josh Brookes and Alex Lowes.

Shakey made no repeat of race one and immediatly led off the line, making amends by pulling a gap of almost a second on the opening two laps, ahead of Josh Brookes, Alex Lowes, and James Ellison. Lowes soon made a move on Brookes, and began to pull in the gap to Shakey Byrne.

Meanwhile, the opening lap saw impressive work from the track staff to clear up the debris from a major first corner smash from James Westmoreland and Peter Hickman, although both riders were ok.

By lap six, Lowes at closed the gap to Byrne down to only 0.2 seconds, dragging Brookes and Ellison with him to create a four-way fight for the lead. Lowes passed Byrne on lap seven, but was unable to make a break from the chasing pack.

This allowed Bynre to squeeze past on lap 11 and pull out a little gap as the battle for second raged behind him. Brookes was also able to force his way past Lowes, and Ellison was able to make it through as well, demoting the Samsung Honda rider from first to fourth in only one lap.

Lowes was soon back past Ellison, who lost contact with the leading group as the battle continued for the win. Ellison was forced to retire into the pits at the end of lap 16 as his bike lost power.

By the last laps, it was Brookes’ turn to take the fight to Byrne, attempting multiple overtakes before locking the back wheel and running wide, giving Shakey a small gap at the front. Brookes was never quite able to pull back the gap to Byrne, spending the last lap defending from an attacking Alex Lowes, who made overtaking attempts at every opportunity.

However, Brookes was able to hold him off to take second. John Kirkham was fourth on the Buildbase BMW, Tommy Bridewell fifth, and Chris Walker sixth, while Howie Mainwaring was the winner of a seven-bike battle for seventh from Keith Farmer, Tristan Palmer and Josh Waters.

Byrne said “It was a bit of a nice way to say sorry to my team! We knew we had a good race setting from pratice, but not being abel to do a full race duration in the first race cost us a little setup time. Still, it’s nice to get another win.

1 67 Shane BYRNE 29:00.552
2 2 Josh BROOKES 0.788 0.788
3 22 Alex LOWES 0.956 0.168
4 10 Jon KIRKHAM 11.927 10.971
5 46 Tommy BRIDEWELL 12.066 0.139
6 9 Chris WALKER 28.214 16.148
7 43 Howie MAINWARING 37.373 9.159
8 303 Keith FARMER 37.443 0.070
9 33 Tristan PALMER 37.688 0.245
10 21 Josh WATERS 37.937 0.249