James East
National Superstock 600
Sondel Sport Racing
Round 4 Cadwell Park


James secures an 11th place finish from a 29th place grid position, on his first visit to Cadwell Park riding the Yamaha 600.
A sensational weekend of sun greeted the 4th round of the British Superbike Championship, bringing maximum grip and fast lap times in all classes.
Easty pushed through practice and qualifying, taking massive chunks out of his lap times in every session as he pieced the demanding Lincolnshire circuit together to improve and find a comfortable and fast set up.
Free Practice – First Session
Group B
23rd 1:37:568 – Session is spent getting laps ‘under the belt’ getting a feel for the circuit and set up, a fault with the gearing and suspension set up and also general in-experience of the circuit is found.
Qualifying 1
17th 1:36:033 – James improves by 1.5 seconds with the gearing improved and the suspension more stable, a fast lap was abandoned due to a red flag whilst James was on all personal best sectors. Suspension settings are adjusted to improve the speed of direction changes.
Qualifying 2
15th 1:35:103 – James finds a stable set up in the session, but struggles with rear end grip, an improvement by nearly a second is found but more adjustments are made before the shootout qualifying race, which proves to provide valuable track time.
Shootout
3rd – 1:35:199
James gets a good start from his 3rd position on the grid to stay in that 3rd position. Instantly on the first lap James tries some moves to gain position to the front but over aggressive riding from fellow competitors make him choose a quick decision to stay in the 3rd position, so not risk a DNF and lose out on a place in the main race, James expressed ‘ there was allot of over optimistic manoeuvres being made to gain the lead, the race didn’t need to be won and I didn’t want to risk a collision that would end my weekend ‘.
James would achieve 29th position on the grid for the main race.

Warm Up
10th 1:34:861
After more suspension settings are changed to compromise between steering and stability James goes 3 tenths quicker than his qualifying time on old tyres. – James quoted ‘ The bike felt great and I felt comfortable and able to hit my points consistently, I’m optimistic for the race ’.
Race
An earlier start than usual as the race commences at 13:15 in heat of early afternoon, and James gets a brilliant start, launching through the row in front to charge down to the first corner. The first lap is carnage, with bumping and tyre smoke in every breaking zone and riders falling by the wayside.
The safety car is deployed after several riders are involved in an accident on the exit to the chicane before the mountain section. After 2 laps the Safety Car pulls in and the race is on again.
James is up to 20th place in no time and carries on to make some solid over takes including a courageous move around the outside at the gooseneck.
James gets clear of a small pack of riders and manages to put his fastest lap time in of a 1:34:719 as he closes in on the pack of riders of which ends in 7th place. James manages to push through to 11th before the flag.
James reflected ‘ I’m pleased with the result, I worked hard and pushed all the way and I believe I’ve salvaged some good points from a weekend spent on the back foot. I want to now get some good testing in before the next round at Knockhill so I’m ready with a good base setting and also ready for the podium ‘.


Thanks go out to;
Sondel Sport Racing
Steve Lynham Motorcycle Repairs
Trackside Media
Homechoice Carpets
R&G RACING
George White
Impact Signs
Ian Brookman/AcademyGPUK
Paul and Co at Arai