Lincolnshire’s Ivan Lintin and the Taylor Lindsey Racing team got their 2013 road racing season underway in fine style at Oliver’s Mount, Scarborough on Sunday with two excellent third place finishes in the Supersport 600cc races.
Having overcome problems with the generator in free practice, the Bardney-based rider qualified the Kawasaki ZX-6R on the front row for the two eight-lap races around the tricky 2.43-mile road circuit and a solid start in the first race saw him complete the opening lap in sixth place. There was little to choose between the riders in third to sixth spot and for the second half of the race Lintin enjoyed a good battle with Michael Pearson and Dan Frear. On the penultimate lap, Lintin moved ahead of both to claim his first podium of the day.
The second race later in the day was cut from eight laps to six due to time constraints and although Lintin made another good start, a slight coming together with Guy Martin at Mere Hairpin held him back slightly. However, he quickly regrouped and overtook Pearson going into the Memorial on the second lap to seize the lead with Martin following suit soon after. The Suzuki rider managed to overhaul Lintin a lap later and although Dean Harrison relegated him to third, Lintin stayed with him for the remainder of the race as he posted a new personal best lap around Oliver’s Mount.
Speaking afterwards, a delighted Lintin said: “It was a bit of a fraught morning when the generator lost all of its power but after that it was nothing but a really positive day and I’m well pleased with the results on the ZX-6R. I opted to run a slightly lower-spec, more conservative engine and it ran like a dream, and given that some of the other riders were running brand new tyres each and every time they took to the track, we were right on the pace.”
“I planned to use the day to blow off the cobwebs and get dialled back into racing and I’ve gone on to exceed what I set out to do. To take a second and a half of my personal best lap time around Oliver’s Mount, so early in the season was especially pleasing and there are so many positives to take out of the day. It’s been a great start and it bodes well for the rest of the season so a big thanks to Taylor Lindsey Racing, John King of JK Tuning and all of my other sponsors for supporting me this year, hopefully we’ll have plenty more days like this over the next few months.”
Lintin will be back in action at Cadwell Park next weekend as he makes his final preparations for the first International road race of the year, the North West 200, which takes place in Northern Ireland on May 14-18.