An unfortunate mistake for Kiyo left him and Byrne out of the race, but this gave Easton the opportunity to regain some confidence
The season began beautifully for Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne, his confident win at Donington Park got everyone excited for the new season, and his fans firmly behind him. The third race in and things became a bit shaky and not in the Shakey kind of way. Bryne’s unfortunate BSB race-fate was determined by his rival Ryuichi Kiyonari who accidentally touched bikes with him at Oulton Park this weekend.
Neither of the riders retained any physical injuries, but Kiyo carried the pain of feeling he’d let himself, the team and Byrne down as both were knocked out of any possibility of finishing the race. “I feel very bad and not good because I am so sorry to Shakey, my team, sponsors, fans and Shakey’s team as I think it was a good race and I was enjoying racing with Shakey – and I destroyed everything with my mistake and I am sorry,” explained Kiyonari.
Whilst Kiyo and Byrne were mourning their unfortunate loss PBM Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton was grinning a wide Cheshire cat grin as he clinched first place on the podium, a win for Byrne’s team and a long-time coming personal success for Easton.
The rider from Hawick suffered a serious, life-threatening injury back in 2011 and is still working to regain his confidence back on a bike. Easton spoke about his recent journey, that has impacted his performance since then “[The win] is a big relief as in 2011 I nearly died racing and it’s been a long road back. 2012 was a rough year and then I went on to win Supersport and then last year I finished seventh, but the last few years have been tough.”
The three podium positions were contended for by James Ellison, Easton and Josh Brookes. Once Kiyo and Byrne had crashed out they were all given confidence as their hopes of securing a first, second or third became much more possible, but of course, still not easy. Ellison reflected on his constant tussle with Easton, “It was a really tough race but hopefully exciting to watch for the fans and Stuart (Easton) rode a great race. I was waiting for him to do something silly but he never did, he went tight on the last corner which is where I was planning/hoping he would and I had in my mind that I was going to make a move on the outside but there was just not enough grip.”
Michael Laverty and Jason O’Halloran also gave the crowd another edge-of-the-seat race battle as they both fought for their places, which came in at fourth and fifth respectively. Lee Jackson was another victorious rider winning his first top ten spot of the season – congratulations Lee!
Although he left empty-placed, Byrne is still a healthy second in the league table, holding 101 points, nine behind the fellow Kawasaki rider, Ellison. Byrne’s crash out in this race left him pointless at the end of the Oulton Park weekend, however, the crash-out was down to Kiyo’s unfortunate mistake and hopefully it’ll give him a reason to come back with a vengeance for race number four at Snetteron on 19-21 June!
Want to catch up with what’s already happened in the 2015 MCE Insurance BSB season? Check out our Donington Park and Brands Hatch race reports to get up to speed.
Photo credit: British Superbike
