PBM Kawasaki’s Shane Byrne eased to a comfortable MCE British Superbike race two victory, and crossed the finishing line with a 4.6s advantage over the rest of the leading pack at Snetterton, to bag his 64th win in the championship.
It was a case of déjà vu as the top three finishers were identical to the opening race, with Milwaukee Yamaha’s Josh Brookes clawing his way up to second, and Honda Racing’s Jason O’Halloran clinging on to take his maiden double BSB podium, after out-pacing Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty for the final rostrum step.
With Byrne doing the double at the Norfolk track he now extends his lead in the overall championship standings to seventeen points, with Brookes remaining in second.
Initially it was Byrne who got the hole-shot followed closely by Brookes and O’Halloran. Parkes had a stellar start and on the opening lap was up to fourth.
But the safety car came out as Team WD-40’s Taylor Mackenzie’s bike caught on fire at Ogies, and he had to quickly get off, bringing a premature end to his race weekend. Buildbase BMW’s Ryuichi Kiyonari race went from bad to worse, first he went wide at Montreal then he ended up in the gravel at Agostini, meaning he came away from the fourth round with zero points.
The safety car went away after two rotations, and the leading bunch of Byrne, Brookes, O’Halloran and Walker ploughed on ahead. But just as things were going well for the Be Wiser Kawasaki rider he crashed just after setting the fastest lap of the race so far, at Riches.
Meanwhile Brookes appeared to have a problem and fell off the pace slightly allowing O’Halloran, Ellison and fellow Milwaukee Yamaha team-mate Broc Parkes to surge on ahead, and dropped two seconds a lap.
Tyco BMW’s Michael Laverty was looking to make up for his technical DNF in race one and at Murrays made his way up to fourth, taking full advantage of Brookes' bike issue with seven laps remaining. His fellow countryman Parkes made a mistake and fell back to ninth, but couldn’t hold on to a top ten place and ended race two in eleventh.
Brookes then showed he was not down and out and found a resurgence of good form and edged back ahead of Laverty and regrouped to tackle the leading pack. With four laps to go the Bringelly rider eyed up O’Halloran as his next victim and at Nelson pushed ahead to go back into second.
At the flag O’Halloran held on to take third from Laverty by the narrowest of margins, with his team-mate Tommy Bridewell completing the top five. PBM Kawasaki’s Stuart Easton, JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Ellison, Backlund, Iddon and Honda Racing’s Dan Linfoot rounded up the top ten, with RAF Reserves BMW’s Peter Hickman the final points finisher in fifteenth.
Mackenzie and Kiyo were not the only riders to fall, Honda Racing’s Jenny Tinmouth and Quattro Plant Kawasaki’s Howie Mainwaring both crashed in separate incidences at Murrays. In a repeat of the opening race JG Speedfit Kawasaki’s James Westmoreland experienced another issue with his ZX-10R and retired to the pits.
