National 600 Superstock Championship
10th – 12th September 2010


Round 10 and the British Superbike Championship arrives at the demanding and rugged Croft Circuit.

James and the team would have to deal not only with this ultra competitive championship, but with changing weather conditions and un
even bumpy track surfaces as well.

Easty is on the TK Cope Yamaha once again which he rode at the previous round at Cadwell Park and achieved a 12th position.
Free Practice, Dry, Day 1
With a 30mm cartridge kit in the forks James finds the bike un familiar from Cadwell Park where he used a 20mm kit, and he struggles to find a consistent pace early on, he would end the session in 18th place on a fastest lap time of 1:28:419. Many improvements are to be made to the bikes handling and suspension set up from James’s feedback after this session.


Qualifying1, Wet, Day 2
With literally minutes to go before the start of QP1 for the National 600 Superstock Championship the clouds burst soaking the track, to only reveal sunshine a few minutes later. In such treacherous conditions James holds back not to make a silly mistake with the promise of sunshine later on for QP2. He ends the session in 24th place on a 1:36:464.

Qualifying 2, Dry
James and the team decide to go back to what they know due to the lack of dry track time and opt to put the 20mm forks back in. James is able to put the bike where he wants on track and despite getting held up on the last few laps of qualifying manages to put a fast enough time to place him 12th on a 1:26:732.
Warm Up, Race Day, Dry

New Suspension settings are applied to the bike to aid the bike’s stability in the turns, James finds this better than before and does a time just shy of his qualifying time on old rubber, he ends the session in 9th position on a 1:26:987.





Race
James gets a strong start avoiding all incidents in the first corner and starts his charge. He quickly overtakes a few riders to find himself on the back of his team mates in TK Cope trio.
On lap 9 James is in a battle between his team mate #33 Liam Lyon and # 3 Anthony Rogers. Rogers passes James with a lunge into Tower corner, but is only in front of him shortly before crashing at the hairpin and collecting Liam to, James is now in 7th position but his tyres are wearing rapidly and are making the bike very difficult to control under braking with the back end sliding in to the corners, James is also hindered on the exit of the corners with the bike spinning up under acceleration with the lack of grip.
Lap 10 and another rider comes past, James clings on for as long as possible right up until the penultimate lap but it is not possible to get close enough to attack with the lack of grip and James settles for his position which is still 7th position after another rider falls in front of him.
After the race a rider who finished in front of James fell found of the rule book and was disqualified handing James a 6th position and more points.
James – “ I am pleased with the result, I wanted to be in the top 6 after Cadwell Park and that has been achieved, it’s an improvement and a good points haul so I am happy, there are a few handling issues that need to be ironed out but we are moving forwards and I can’t wait for Silverstone so we can make these changes and push for the top 6 again “.


Easty has now moved up to 12th in the Championship.
Thanks Go Out To:-
TK COPE MOTO
John East, Kev Smith, Stefan Pollard and Ian Brookman for the Support and Help.
Simon and Karen Sherras and Homechoice Carpets.
R&G Racing
Impact Signs
James Swift, Dominoes Pizza
Motrax