Vickers and RAF Regular & Reserve forced to sit out Brands
Ryan Vickers and the RAF Regular & Reserve Kawasaki team’s hopes of a strong comeback to the Bennetts British Superbike Championship ended early at Brands Hatch at the weekend with the Norwich rider suffering heavy concussion in Saturday morning’s free practice session.
After sustaining a broken collarbone at the previous round at Donington Park three weeks ago, the 20-year old had taken full advantage of the break to get himself near to full fitness, which had been aided by spells in the hyperbaric chamber on the Isle of Man where the team were competing successfully at the TT with Gary Johnson.
Both Ryan and the team were hopeful of bouncing back strongly and getting back amongst the top ten finishers at Brands but the weekend got off to a slow start when a front wheel sensor issue in Friday’s opening free practice session resulted him in only completing a handful of laps.
With the problem fixed, he was back out on track for the afternoon’s second session where the team made a number of changes to the set up of the Kawasaki ZX-10RR, particularly with the rear of the bike where they tried two different shocks. Moving in the right direction all the time, Ryan eventually settled on using the original shock as this was giving better grip and drive onto the GP circuit.
Going into Saturday morning’s third and final free practice session, Ryan was feeling a lot happier and more comfortable on the bike and was looking to move his way up the leaderboard. The lap times quickly improved from the previous day and on his first flying lap he went half a second quicker than his previous best lap of the weekend but, unfortunately, a lap later he crashed out at Clearways.
As has happened to many riders before, and a number of others over the course of the weekend, the combination of a bit too much speed, a bit too much brake and the notorious bump at the entrance to the corner caught him out and he crashed heavily. The resulting impact left him with heavy concussion and a trip to King’s Hospital, London which ruled him out of action for the remainder of the weekend.
Lee Hardy, Team Owner: “After a good TT with Gary, we were looking forward to coming back to the BSB series with Ryan and although he wasn’t quite back to 100% fitness, the collarbone had healed well and we were all hopeful of a good weekend. Unfortunately, Ryan crashed towards the end of the final free practice session after hitting the notorious bump on the entrance to Clearways which has caught out many a champion before and went on to do the same to Tarran Mackenzie in qualifying later in the afternoon.”
“The end result was that Ryan took a significant bang to the head which resulted in severe concussion and a trip to King’s Hospital where he’s currently being monitored. The doctor’s are happy with how he’s progressing but with safety being paramount, it’s highly likely that we’ll miss the next round at Knockhill and look to come back at our home round of Snetterton in a month’s time. It will give Ryan a good period of time to get fully fit and we’ll look to have a test prior to Snetterton to ensure he’s fully comfortable with everything prior to the race weekend. A big thank you to the BSB medical team for their great work in looking after Ryan after the crash.”
Round five of the series takes place at Knockhill, Scotland in two weeks time with round six at Snetterton on July 14-16.
Pictures by Tim Keeton – Impact Images Photography
