Further Frustration For Fitzpatrick
Close Print Finance Honda's Craig Fitzpatrick suffered a further setback to his
2010 British Superbike Evo campaign at Round 4 at Cadwell Park. A huge crash in
the third free practice session resulted in Fitzpatrick having to withdraw from
the remainder of the meeting due to a combination of injury and damage sustained
to the bike.
From the outset Fitzpatrick struggled with gearbox problems. His Honda was
jumping out of gear which caused him to go straight on at the end of the start
finish straight in both of Friday's free practice sessions. At speeds of around
150mph down the straight, Fitzpatrick twice hit a false neutral as he attempted
to slow for the high speed left-hander of Coppice. With no engine braking,
Fitzpatrick had nowhere to go but pick the bike up and head straight across the
grass. Although he managed to keep the bike upright both times, riding over the
uneven ground buckled a set of wheels.
With the gearbox problems undermining his confidence in the bike, Fitpatrick was
6th fastest in the opening session, improving to 3rd fastest in the second
session.
Unable to fix the problem the Close Print Finance Honda team decided to swap the
engine and gearbox on Friday night to the one they had taken out at the previous
round at Oulton Park.
Fitzpatrick used the early laps during Saturday morning's free practice 3 as a
shakedown to test the new engine installation. Happy with the bike, Fitzpatrick
began to up the pace. Shortly after however, his weekend was brought to a
premature end after a massive high-side exiting the chicane.
As he accelerated out of the left hander, the rear tyre let go and the bike
threw him off. Fitzpatrick took a big impact to his back and ruptured the
ligaments in his right ankle. The bike went on to bounce end-over-end and land
upside down, splitting both the front and rear wheels in half; crushing the
tank; compressing the head stock and causing suspected frame damage.
Fitzpatrick was taken to the medical centre, where he had a number of X-rays
before being cleared to leave on crutches. The decision was taken then that
Fitzpatrick and the team would take no further part in the meeting.
Afterwards Fitzpatrick said: "I am absolutely gutted, yet again we have come
away disappointed. I felt much better coming into this weekend as I had finally
recovered from the infection I have been struggling with all year. The ankle was
just about recovered after the crash at Thruxton."
"We had gearbox problems on Friday, with it jumping out of gear. I don't know
what the problem is, we will have to open it up and see if we can find out.
After the team worked hard Friday evening to swap the engine and gearbox over,
things were starting to feel much better."
"The crash was a bit of an odd one, I am not really sure what happened. I don't
know if they was some fluid on the track or something, but it didn't really give
me any warning, it just let go. I took quite a knock, and have ruptured the
ligaments in my ankle. Although we could have probably made it back out to race,
we made a call not to because we will need to thoroughly examine the frame. The
bike took several big impacts and all that force has to be absorbed somewhere."
Fitzpatrick now has four weeks before round 5 of the championship at Mallory Park.
Sam Farrington
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