Plenty of Reason to Smile

Plenty of Reason to Smile

MAY 27, 2013: It’s not hard to see why Hamilton’s former New Zealand champion Nick Cole is all smiles when he races his Kawasaki ZX-10R superbike.

It’s a very potent and yet still very rider-friendly motorcycle, just as Britain’s Tom Sykes demonstrated at the weekend when he scored back-to-back wins at round five of the World Superbike Championships at Donington Park.

Sykes a 'fairy-tale' double victory on home soil at Donington Park in the British Midlands at the weekend and moved onto the cusp of the World Superbike title lead.

Sykes had been in outstanding form in the lead up to the races, topping Q1, Q2, FP2 and all three Superpole phases on the way to a lap record-breaking pole position, earmarking him as a favourite for victory come race day.

And so it proved, Sykes proving equally imperious in both races, leading each of the day's 66 laps (the same as his racing number) and scoring a new race lap record to complete his first-ever WSBK double win – the first by a British rider at Donington Park since Carl Fogarty in 1995.

A landmark result for Sykes, who has reduced Sylvain Guintoli's lead in the overall standings to just four points, last year's WSBK runner-up was thrilled to produce his best in front of the home crowd.

“I have been in World Superbike for a few years now and I got the first double win on home soil is a fairy tale. One click on the front suspension between races made the difference and we could see that in the second race time, which was better than the first one.

“The Ninja ZX-10R is working well and it has been all weekend so I feel very motivated. We are racing in a World Championship and these guys are as fast as you like and very competitive, so it is not as easy as it looked. Kawasaki is a very close unit and we have worked hard and everybody has seen how much better we are in the races. I got the circuit record yesterday and I got the new lap record in race two so I have the full set.”

New Zealand’s Aaron Slight enjoyed wicked success on Kawasaki superbikes back in the 1990s, just as Waikato’s Cole is enjoying on the domestic scene in more recent times.

Slight won the Australian Superbike Championships on a Kawasaki superbike back in 1991, before heading off to Europe to contest the World Superbike Championships.

The man from Masterton finished third for Kawasaki in the world championships in 1993.

He also teamed up on a Kawasaki superbike with American Scott Russell to win the fabled Suzuka 8-Hour in 1993.

Meanwhile, Cole took his Kawasaki ZX-10R to finish fourth in the New Zealand Superbike Championships in 2012 and placed fifth overall this season.

Credit: Words by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

ENDS

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