Tommy Aquino enjoyed his first winning ride in an incident packed Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship round as he headed off the local Lincolnshire lad Lee Jackson with Simon Andrew third on the road, though later excluded for his part in the incident that saw Tristan Palmer crash, with Victor Cox awarded third place.
Aquino, riding the WD40 Kawasaki, had taken pole start but made a poor get-away leaving himself playing catch-up on early leader Tristan Palmer aboard the Rapido Sport Ducati Panigale and the series leading Adam Jenkinson on the SMT Kawasaki. Aquino was on the charge, picking off Jenkinson who was soon taken by Andrews and Jackson, to be running second to Palmer on the second lap.
Palmer was riding as hard as he could but Aquino was visibly reeling him in and after four laps there was just 0.030secs between them – the lead had changed as they powered through Coppice and once ahead the American was running almost a full second clear by the end of the fifth lap. Andrews was solid in third ahead of Jackson with Lee Johnstone moving into contention ahead of Victor Cox who had momentarily lost ground by winning a little wide.
Andrews was closing on Palmer and after eight laps there was only 0.059secs between them and going through Coppice towards Charlies Andrews made a harsh move to get ahead of Palmer, with the Ducati rider forced wide, across the grass and crashing heavily. The move was soon under investigation by race officials who studied television footage and took other reports.
Jackson grabbed second place from Andrews with Cox fourth from Johnston and Jenkinson and they were running in that order after ten laps when Dan Hegarty tipped off at Park, needing medical attention and prompting the red-flags to halt the action, at two thirds distance with the result declared.
Auquino was thrilled: "That was a great result for me despite me making the worst start in my life. I battled hard, made some good passes. It is a really good weekend for me – pole, the win, and I have got to hand it to my team and the result was the best way to thank them. I am just so excited to be standing here on the podium enjoying my first win here. The crowd is immense, so impressive – I really appreciate it and and love it."
Second place went to Jackson on the Buildbase BMW and he said: "That was a good old race, a lot of good battles and I could see towards the end that I was catching Tommy and I was not too sure how much grip he had but before I could do much more I saw the crash at Park and expected the red flags to come out."
Andrews had mixed feelings as he took what he though was his first podium finish of the season on the RAF Reserves Honda. ?Personally I have to apologise to Tristan and hope that he is OK – we've suffered a bit with punch out of the corners and we have to carry corner speed."
Andrews took part in the podium ceremony but later learned his fate as race officials excluded him for an 'unfair manoeuvre causing an accident'.
Cox fourth on the road was credited with third place ahead of Johnston with Jenkinson fifth and still gaining some ground in the title stakes, moving 19 points clear of his nearest rival Hudson Kennaugh, who had made a pit-lane start with his Homer Racing Kawasaki running on three cylinders, pulling in after six laps of running at the back of the pack. And Joe Burns, who ran back in a distant eleventh place on the JG Speedfit Kawasaki, was feeling the pain of a 50 points deduction imposed on him for a parc ferme regulation infringement in the previous round at Oulton Park.
