Lyons endures up and down weekend at Oulton

OMAGH’S Jamie Lyons endured an up and down weekend during round two of the Pirelli National Junior Superstock Championship at Oulton Park where he achieved his best ever finish in the class.

The 18-year-old proved his pace during qualifying when, had it not been for a scary crash involving his friend, Jake Hopper, which resulting in the session being red flagged, he likely would have earned a place in the front row. In the end he had to settle with sixth, but he was happy with his efforts on the wet track.

“When I saw it was wet I automatically knew it was going to be an OK qualifying because I can ride a bike in the wet,” he explained.

“It was good and I was actually on a lap that would have put me second but the red flag came out and I nearly got involved in the red flag incident. Overall it was a good qualifying session and I was happy with it.”

Lyons positive form continued during race one when, despite a tentative start that saw him relegated a few positions, he regrouped and got to within touching distance of a first ever top 10 finish in the Junior Superstock Championship. In the end, though, he was happy for a best ever finish of 11th in the series.

Unfortunately for the Omagh Academy A-Level pupil his hopes of a podium finish in race two were dashed on lap one when he was forced to take evasive action following another crash.

“In race one I was a bit tentative at the start but once I got going I put in some good lap times. The bike felt a lot better this weekend, so I was happy enough with 11th,” he acknowledged. “Then, race two, it was the same story as last year. Charlie Atkins high-sided in real slippy conditions and I’d made it up to eighth within four corners, I had really good pace, podium pace, but one of the boys grabbed a handful of brake trying to avoid Charlie when I don’t think they really needed to and I had nowhere to go except onto the grass and off I came and that was it.

“It wasn’t ideal but there’s nothing I could do.”

While disappointed and somewhat frustrated with how his weekend ended, Lyons is focusing on the positives ahead of round three at Donington Park on the weekend of May 19th to 21st.

“I can take some positives [from Monday] I felt the most comfortable and confident I’d ever felt going into lap one,” he observed.

“Normally I’m quite tentative because even though I’m big, I’m not really built for the 600 yet and I find it hard to move it around aggressively on lap one, but definitely I was a lot more confident and that’s a positive.

“We’ll now take it on to Donington where I will take on the positives that we can from this weekend and hopefully convert those into more points.”