| Author | Message | ||||||||||||||||||||
     Blake |
British Superbike Championship standings ahead of season finale (three race event at Brand's Hatch): Current point standings
A total of 75 possible points is up for grab. Go Hopper!  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Jaimec |
No worries... they LOVE calling him an "Anglo-American." | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Davegess |
they LOVE calling him an "Anglo-American." Yeah, just like all the kids from Northern Ireland are "Brits". I like that Gene Laverty uses the Irish Republic flag in WBSK, I wonder what his brother in BSB uses? Everything has to have some bit of politics  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
My five year old has a day off school today. I'm taking him down to Brands to watch them practise. Unfortunately they are on the short "Indy" circuit today but paddock bend is still pretty exciting when they are going for it. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| 46champ |
Simond are you saying that they practice on one course and race on a different course? That seems counter intuitive to achieving proper setup. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
They ran today on the Indy Circuit but it is officially titled a "Test" session. This might be to cut costs or to keep the locals happy. There is a practise session tomorrow morning followed by two qualifying sessions on the full GP circuit. There will be one race tomorrow afternoon and two on Friday. It should be interesting. I hope Hopper's finger is ok - it looked nasty a couple of weeks ago. He was sixth fastest this afternoon but the Indy circuit gives little indication of their performance on the full GP circuit. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Jaimec |
What the heck happened to John in Race #2?? | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
A sensor failed. It was a cracking finish to the Championship though - you couldn't have scripted it better. I'm sure Shakey is gutted. I haven't worked it out but he must have scored the most points this year yet ended up third. I hope John Crockford and Marshal Neil are ok. Crockford's crash looked horrific. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blake |
Congrats to Tommy Hill, fought for and won the #1. Tough to swallow for Hopper, championship lost by 0.006 seconds. Ouch! British Superbike Championship | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
The scoring system resets the top six rider's points to 500 with three rounds to go. They get credits for podiums achieved throughout the season but any points advantage built up during the season is erased. ...so effectively you start a 3 round championship between the top six riders in September. This was done to enhance the "spectacle" after Leon Camier ran away with the title in 2009. If you take points won in the usual manner, Byrne would have won with Hill second and Hopper third. That is all academic though as the top riders tend to back off as soon as they know they are safe in the top six.......and Hopper wouldn't have sat out the August Cadwell round with his finger injury. It certainly makes for a dramatic end to the season but is a little contrived. The final race yesterday, however, was superb! (Message edited by SimonD on October 10, 2011) (Message edited by SimonD on October 10, 2011) | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Trojan |
Great finish to the season and John Hopkins ran Tommy Hill all the way to the line. The only pity was Hopkins being very petulant when interviewed after the race by BBC. We know he was disapointed, but he could at least have congratulated the winner instead of sticking his lip out like a kid kicked out of a sweet shop  Maybe some PR lessons before Hopper gets back to MotoGP. Other than that, great race to the title and in the end a worthy winner who deserved to win (especially after being cruelly robbed last year). | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
In fairness Hopkins has been fantastic for the series and has done the PR thing very well all year. I don't think the Eurosport guy shoving a microphone under his helmet before he had even taken it off put him in the best of moods! | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Trojan |
In fairness Hopkins has been fantastic for the series and has done the PR thing very well all year. I don't think the Eurosport guy shoving a microphone under his helmet before he had even taken it off put him in the best of moods! I agree to a point, adn he has been a revelation all year on the Suzuki. I still think though that he should have at least had the good grace to congratulate the winner (everyone else did after all). I know he must have been gutted to lose by such a close margin, but that's racing and he should be experienced and professional enough by now to realise that. His time will come around again. Sorry I meant Eurosport and not BBC oops. That's how confused I get from flicking channels between F1 and BSB  | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blake |
Whoa! BSB uses the NASCAR championship model? That's surprising! | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Trojan |
The new points system was brought in a couple of years ago as SimonD says, in order to stop a rider running away with the championship and making the last few rounds dull. he good thing about the 'showdown' system is that it always guarantees a good finish to the season and doesn't penalise a rider for a non finish during the year as badly as the old system used to. Unfortunately it does penalise a rider very heavily if he haas a non finish in any of th elast 6 races of the 'Showdown' series, as Tommy Hill found last year and Hopkins this year. Also, it means that the rider with the best overall record for the year (Shane Byrne) finishes third instead of winning. The system is popular with the media as it makes for a good final race, but isn't that popular with fans, riders or team managers so I think there may be some more rule 'tweaks' for next year. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blake |
Socialism in racing. Yuck! A race isn't interesting just because a competitor has clinched the championship? I agree with the fans. Sounds goofy to me. Thought it was really goofy for NASCAR too. If they want to diminish the effects of a poor showing at one race, then they ought to just count all but the worst performance of each competitor, kind of a race Mulligan. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Trojan |
If they want to diminish the effects of a poor showing at one race, then they ought to just count all but the worst performance of each competitor, kind of a race Mulligan. They used to have a similar system in BSB. What prompted the changes was when Leon Camier won virtually every race in the first year of the crossplane crank R1, so by mid season had the championship sewn up. I would prefer a series that takes every round into consideration for the final result, but the new system seems to have its share of powerful supporters and it does make the end of season races very exciting I must admit The problem is that there is very little incentive for the riders/teams that don't make the final 6 round showdown to even turn up and race at teh last few events. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Jaimec |
Maybe if they just stayed home and had a beer instead the PTB would rethink things? Nah, more likely they'd just devise a penalty system. It's like NHL Hockey. The regular season doesn't count for much... every year it seems the same four (or so) teams get eliminated and the playoff season is as long as the regular season. That makes the regular season downright boring as there are certain players that just "mailed it in" during the regular season and didn't wick it up till the play offs. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simond |
It is a shame that in the second half of the season there are always teams and riders that are not fighting for anything. BUT when it produces racing such as we saw on Sunday..........! I'm not sure what the policy is here about links to Youtube but if you search for "Race 3 Highlights - Brands Hatch GP" or "BSB 2011 - Brands Hatch - Phenomenal last lap, 0.006s" you'll get some idea . | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blake |
Simon, See the "Help/Instructions" - "Formatting" - "Images & Video" page for posting YouTube content here.
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| Simond |
Thanks Blake. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Blake |
Wow! Thanks for posting that. Incredible. | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Dannybuell |
My heart is pounding! |
