British 125GP - Brands Hatch - Tim Hastings
Subscribe to our newsletter and keep up to date!
Simply enter your email address below and you will be added to our mailing list. Rest assured your email will remain private and will never be passed on to other parties. We hate spam as much as you do!
A best ever 4th place finish in the British 125GP Championship and a second consecutive Cup podium were fitting rewards for a fighting race performance by Falkirk’s Tim Hasting at the re-scheduled 3rd round of the BSB series at Brands Hatch.
The original meeting fell victim to the snow in early April, but with the qualifying grid carried over from the postponed event Saturday’s two practice sessions were all about getting the KRP Honda properly set up and giving Tim a chance to re-acquaint himself with one of his favourite tracks.
Race day conditions couldn’t have been more different than in April - with blue skies and high temperatures ensuring a huge crowd at the Kent circuit.
With Deane Brown suffering another injury blow in warm-up, Tim moved up to 7th on the grid, and he got another of his customary flying starts as the lights went out. He quickly found himself blocked on the outside, so dropped back down to the inside only to find himself again hemmed in – this time by Cat Green. As the race settled down Tim soon found his rhythm and settled into around 6th place, before beginning a huge race-long battle with a group of five other riders.
Tim then found that his bike was intermittently cutting out, and at one stage – while lining up a pass on Jay Lewis onto the start/finish straight – it stopped completely, leading Tim to pull over thinking his race was run. The bike then fired back into life and Tim was able to continue, fighting his way back into contention with the battling group ahead.
The Brands crowd (and a huge TV audience) were then treated to one of the best races of the day as Tim constantly swapped places in a group which included team-mates Paul Jordan and Tom Hayward, fellow-Scot Stewart Finlay, Connor Behan and Jay Lewis.
As others dropped out ahead of them and Matt Hoyle pulled away for a well deserved win, the battle soon became a fight for the final Championship podium place. On the last lap Tim took 3rd spot from Paul Jordan coming into Clearways before a big slide meant he had to back off the throttle momentarily – allowing his team-mate to get the vital drive to the line and take the podium place by 0.079 sec.
Despite being hampered with what appeared to be an electrical problem Tim went a full 2 seconds faster than at Brands in 2007, and came away with his best ever BSB race result. He now sits 7th in the Championship and 4th (only 3 points from 2nd) in the Cup standings.
Team Twister would like to thank all their sponsors - Green Machines, Digby Brown Solicitors, Pro-Scot, Phoenix Honda, Nevis Marketing and Arkose Design – and also thank all those who sent messages of support following their family bereavement.
The team now looks forward to the next Round at Donington Park on the Bank Holiday weekend of 24-26th May.
Popularity: 6% [?]
The Biker Place is a motorcycle racing website with up to date news and race reports. Check out our section on the up and coming racers and keep up to date with their progress.
