Dunfermline Press | Sport | Record crowds savour bike action at Knockhill

Tuesday, 6th January, 2009

Published: Thursday, 5th July, 2007 12:00

Record crowds savour bike action at Knockhill

By Sportsdesk

MORE than 26,000 bike fans flocked to Knockhill despite the wet weekend weather, which led to water flowing down the track “like a burn”.

Circuit staff were delighted with the weekend, which saw Knockhill stage round seven of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

Saturday’s qualifying competition was the track’s best-ever qualifying Saturday when a record 5500 spectators turned up.

That grew to 26,000 on Sunday when the main Superbikes races were run. The first race was delayed by an hour because of the conditions but both went ahead, with the second race being screened live by STV.

Knockhill PR manager Ray Smith told Press Sport, “We always knew Sunday was going to be dodgy. We thought there would be showers but what we actually got was a deluge.

“Water was running down the track like a burn. We had to bring out sweepers to sweep the track and the running order was altered somewhat because of the weather. But crucially, the two rounds of the Superbikes both ran.”

Smith admitted the weather had caused the circuit some problems but said the Knockhill crowd had taken it in their stride.

“It was the first year we tried to park everyone on site without the need for a park & ride,” he explained.

“Overall it was successful but because of the bad weather, we had to do some retrieval work to get people out of the extended car park on a neighbouring farm. We are going to have a look at the whole site and look hard to see if there’s a way of improving traffic flow, particularly on exiting the event but this would have to be done in conjunction with Fife Council’s planning department.

“The racing was good. There was never going to be any lap records demolished in these kind of conditions. To ride a motor bike at all in that kind of weather was impressive and there were no serious injuries during the day.”

It was 20-year-old Superbike superstar Jonathan Rea, from Ballyclare, Northern Ireland, who shone amid the gloom.

The HM Plant Honda rider proved invincible in both feature races, finishing almost seven seconds ahead of his team mate and championship leader, Ryuchi Kiyonari, in race one.

In the second Superbike race, Airwaves Ducati rider Leon Haslam finished second to the flying Irishman.

The special ‘Flying Haggis’ trophy in memory of Steve Hislop, awarded to the rider setting the fastest Superbike lap of the day, was presented by Margaret Hislop, mother of the late champion, to a delighted Rea.

His best time of 51.971 seconds at an average speed of 86.43 miles per hour was mightily impressive in the atrocious conditions.