BSB Knockhill
Fermanagh's motorcycle racing tennager Josh Elliott competed in his first British Championsip race meeting at Knockhill in Scotland last weekend. Having been offered a much more competitive 125 Honda than his own by Camridgeshire company, Express Forklifts, it was too good an opportunity to miss.
Free practice in dry conditions unfortunately highlighted a number of minor electronic glitches and set up issues with the bike and although young Elliott was impressed with it's turn of speed, the handling was the biggest concern. First qualifying was wet and the Ballinamallard youngster struggled to get to grips with the feel in the slippery conditions and could only manage 30th place.
A decision was made to run his own bike in final qualifying as although it was no were near as fast, it handles beautifully. The switch paid off, and in damp conditions Elliott jumped up to 16th on the grid for the race.
On race day the weather played havoc with morning warm up as Elliott missed the session when he had slick tyres fitted and it rained as he went out on track. Heavy showers and sunny spells traded places all day and made tyre choices difficult, however the 125 race got a dry run.
Elliott again chose to use his own bike, as not enough time was available to set up the faster Express Forklifts machine. The race start was poor by the youngster as his bike jumped out of gear and he dropped a lot of places. A crash involving two riders on the second lap brought a stoppage, so he had another chance to make a decent start. This was not to be as the over anxious lad rolled forward slightly before the lights went out and stopped, but the movement handed him a 20 second penalty.
Unaware of this Elliott rode a superb race, coming through from 18th on lap three to grab 11th on the line relying on maximum effort in the corners to offset lack of horsepower. The 20 second penalty dropped him to 23rd in the final results tally, but on the focus was on performance and experience, so he was delighted after the race. "That was about the hardest race of my life," he commented. "I messed up the start and just went for it after that. I never thought I'd get into the top 20 over here never mind to finish 11th. There are some very quick bikes here. I had to do some very late breaking into the corners to compete, but it was great fun."
Well done to Lee Johnston for winning the 600 Superstock race today. He deserved that win as he was awesome.
Elliott heads directly to Brno in the Czech republic now to compete in the last two Red Bull Rookies races of the season and hopes this confidance boosting performance will help him end the run of bad luck he has had in the series.