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Craig Fitzpatrick came away empty handed from round 2 of the British Superbike
Evo Championship at Oulton Park. Fitzpatrick was forced to sit out both races
after discovering damage to his Close Print Finance BLDS Honda, sustained in the crash at Brands Hatch a week
earlier.
Fitzpatrick had begun the weekend 5th fastest, in Saturday's opening practice
session. Having made some alterations to the set-up, Fitzpatrick was able to
improve his lap times but he seemed unable to go under one minute 40. Various
tweaks were made to try and improve the Hondas cornering, but without
significant success.
As qualifying came around, Fitzpatrick was still unable to find any more time
and slipped back to 8th quickest.
After the session, the team checked the alignment of the bike, to find that the
frame, swing arm and rear wheel spindle had been bent in the opening round
accident. The wheels were found to be 25mm out of alignment, which was causing
the rear wheel to skip on right-hand corners and making the bike difficult to
turn-in to left-handers.
The team worked to realign the wheels, on the swing arm adjustment, for warm-up,
but it was to no avail. The decision was taken not to race, as the team were
unable to resolve the issue in the available time.
A disappointed Fitzpatrick said: "I had been struggling to get the bike settled
in the corners throughout practice. We had tried all sorts of changes to the
chassis but couldn't resolve the issues."
"We measured the wheel alignment on Sunday evening and discovered that the frame
and the swing arm were bent. The wheels were 25mm out of line. We tried to
improve the alignment as best we could, but it was too far out."
"I am gutted that we were unable to race because the whole team has worked so
hard since Brands Hatch to get everything ready. We only had three days between
rounds to rebuild the bike."
"On the positive side, at least we know what the issue is and that it can be resolved
in time for the next round at Croft. It's not exactly been a perfect start to
the year, but I am confident we can go to Croft turn things around." |
