Linxcel Racing Team
Lydden Hill Race Report
24-25 March 2007
The second round of the BMCRC MRO Supersport 600 Championship was held at the Lydden Hill Circuit near Dover. After the outstanding performance by the two Seton Tuning riders Andy Weymouth and Liam Lyon at Brands Hatch earlier this month, they were in excellent spirit to try to repeat the results.
The practice session on the Saturday morning was very damp and overcast with a very low temperature this set the tone for the first days racing.
The 1st qualifying session saw the riders making the difficult decision of which type of tyres to choose. Both decided to use dry tyres, but soon discovered wet patches on the track, because of this neither rider was prepared to push harder than they did and decided to save themselves for the second of the two qualifying sessions.
Going into the 2nd qualifying session Andy Weymouth sat at 6th position with Liam Lyon slightly behind in 9th place with times of 44.831 and 45.034 retrospectively. This session had similar conditions to the previous session, but with the added difficulty of a fine misty drizzle. These conditions can be extremely off putting for riders as the water will stream up the screen and give the impression of rain.
Despite these conditions both riders managed to push considerably harder and finished the qualifying session with Andy Weymouth in 3rd place and Liam Lyon in 4th with only 0.001 seconds between them and only 0.051 off Dean Daniels in the pole position. This set the grid for the Superpole race.
10 minutes before the Superpole race it started to rain heavily and there was a drastic drop in the temperature. As the lights went green Andy Weymouth had a good start and kept his second place position into the first corner. Liam Lyon bogged down a little and fell into 6th place. Andy Weymouth quickly pushed into the lead and tried to break the chasing Dean Daniels. Liam Lyon was embroiled in a battle for 3rd place with Phil Cossey and Pat Sherridan, with whom he was constantly changing places. On the 7th lap of the 9 laps Liam Lyon got held up by a lapped rider, which forced him back to 5th place. On the final lap he regained 4th from Pat Sherridan. Andy Weymouth held 1st for 8 of the 9 laps but was unable to create a gap between himself and second place rider Dean Daniels. On the final lap Dean Daniels pulled off a very brave manoeuvre and rode on the outside around Chessons Drift and then out-breaked him into the Devils Elbow a move Andy had no answer for. This left the final positions as Daneils 1st, Weymouth 2nd, Cossey 3rd. Much to the teams disgust Liam Lyon was penalised with 10 second penalty for supposedly over taking under a yellow flag. Despite the testimony of the other rider concerned opposing this decision the penalty was upheld which pushed Liam Lyon down to 6th place.
On Sunday morning we awoke to a much sunnier day but still with a low temperature. In the 1st race of the two on Sunday both riders made a good start. Andy Weymouth dropped behind Dean Daniels into 2nd place in the battle for the first corner and Liam Lyon into 5th place. On lap 1 Andy Weymouth pushed passed Dean Daniels and started to pulled away at a consistently faster pace than Dean Daniels and held that place undisturbed for the remains of the race. Andy Weymouth pace was such that with a lap of 42.088 he not only broke the Supersport 600 lap record but also held the fastest lap for the meeting so far. Liam Lyon had a much better start than the Superpole race and moved into 4th place by the 1st corner. On lap 2 Liam Lyon pushed past Daniel Fowler to take 3rd place and set about chasing Dean Daniels in 2nd. By lap 5 Liam Lyon had closed the preceding gap to 0.9 seconds; unfortunately he suffered from a rear wheel slide coming out of Chessons Drift. This lost Liam Lyon half a second and meant Dean Daniels had an unassailable lead on him. The positions at the top remained the same for the rest of the race, with Lyon putting in a fastest lap time of 42.137 which was actually faster than the 2nd places best time.
The sun stayed for the second race of the day but the temperature had dropped a bit. Both riders had complained of rear end grip problems in the previous race, so team manager Phil Seton made some minor changes to the suspension settings. Both riders had excellent starts and Andy Weymouth got the hole shot and Liam Lyon took 4th place into the 1st corner. By the Devils Elbow Liam Lyon had pushed into 3rd place and was close behind Dean Daniels. Andy Weymouth started to extend his lead stringing together a succession of laps well below his own lap record set in race 1. Needless to say Andy Weymouth's lead extended and by lap 5 he was 3 seconds out of reach of Dean Daniels. Liam Lyon was shadowing Dean Daniels from lap 2 to lap 5 when he felt it was time to push past at the hair pin. For the final laps Dean Daniels unsuccessfully pushed Liam Lyon every way possible to try to regain 2nd place but Liam Lyon held his fastest lines and Dean Daniels could only chase. All this on track action made the final position a perfect 1and 2 for the Seton Tuning team with the fastest lap times of 41.867 for Andy Weymouth and 42.202 for Liam Lyons.
Lyon was thrilled with the result 'Daniels is a formidable opponent and I feel a real sense of accomplishment in beating him. I'm starting to feel more in tune with the bike and feel more comfortable about pushing it harder. I hope we can get more results like that in the future. I'm also hoping that I'll be able to start catching up on Andy's leads in the races and give him a bit more competition'.
When asked what he thought of his team's performance Phil Seton was quoted as saying 'They both performed excellently. Liam's lines particularly round the hairpin were so spectacular that he was actually teaching Andy a thing or two. Both riders are starting to feel more comfortable on the bikes and the lap times are showing this. To get a 1st & 2nd in the last race was amazing. They both worked so hard this weekend and I was very proud of them. The rest of the team have worked really hard to give the riders the best support and I would like to give them my thanks . I would like to thank all our sponsors:
Ceradure, Comms4less, Daytona paints, Dynapro, Linxcel, MBC Dispatch, North Essex Signs, Only Kitchens, Power Bronze, Racer, T K Cope, Venhill, www.systemcms.com. Last but not least, thanks to all the marshals, medical team, Bemsee / MRO officials, who work tirelessly to ensure the meetings, go without a hitch."
