Motorcycles and news

The two youngsters only had one full practice session on Sunday morning in the glorious sunshine before going into the 28-lap race. Under the circumstances the riders qualifying positions were taken from their current Championship positions. This meant Westy was sitting in ninth place on the grid and Cooper in 14th.

Both gained a reasonable start and held their position at the end of the first lap. At the technical 1.41-mile circuit passing opportunities are limited but both made a valiant effort to work their way through the field. Cooper passed a number of riders and was on a mission to catch his team-mate, and was sat behind him after fighting his way past Aaron Walker on lap 18.

Westy took the Supersport Cup race win and extended his lead in the Cup championship commenting “After a difficult weekend I’m pretty satisfied with 12th place. With hardly any dry track time I felt like I did a good job to bring the bike home where I did. Although 12th doesn’t sound very impressive, Mallory has always been a track that I struggle at and now I’m happy to put it behind me and look forward to Croft. I would like to thank the Centurion Team and Dunlop for doing a great job once again.”

Cooper rode and exceptional race, after losing his best friend Ollie on Friday, he battled through the very difficult circumstances saying, “It’s been an emotional weekend for me, Ollie and I were very close and losing him like this was very hard. The team gave me the choice if I wanted to race or not but I know Ollie wouldn’t want it any other way and I wanted to have a good race for him. I did a few laps in the wet on Saturday and it was hard to focus on the job in hand but I regained my focus and ended up in fourth place. I started from 14th position on the grid and got a reasonable start, the new bikes are fantastic and Mallory is a very tricky circuit to pass on, I mastered my way past a few people and had to settle behind Westy as I was pushing my tyres to its limit. I was happy to bring the bike home and in the points, I’m going to spend some time with the Bridewell family this week and my thoughts are with Marc, Liz, Tommy and Charlotte at this time, he was a great person and I thought of him like a brother. I’d like to thank the entire team for supporting me the way they have this weekend, they have all been great.”

Team Manager Gary Stubbington said, “The boys, once again, did a fantastic job. This is the first time that the pair have ridden the new bikes in the dry and both scored exceptional results and both were in the points. Dan rose to the occasion after the sad loss of Ollie and really got his head down and focused himself on the race. Mallory is a hard circuit and the lap times that the pair were setting were great and it has proved that once they fully adjust to the new bikes then there will hopefully be more to come at the remaining rounds in the season. The team are all very pleased with the results that we gained today.”

Paul Rees and Gary Stubbington and the entire Centurion Team wish to send their condolences to the family and friends of Ollie Bridewell who sadly lost his life on Friday.