SMT Honda's difficult British Superbike season continued when Sean Emmett was forced to withdraw between the two races due to injury.
With Adam Jenkinson still recovering from his own injuries and
Snetterton replacement Marshall Neill lumbered with other commitments, SMT called up experienced rider Emmett to compete with them at
Mallory Park.
With little time to adjust to the Honda bike, Emmett struggled over much of the weekend but finished just outside the points in the first race after an entertaining battle with James Haydon and Guy Martin.
However, a fall in the Yamaha R1 Cup, the series he normally competes in, between the two races saw him injure his thumb, giving the team no choice but to miss the second race. Naturally, team principal Robin
Croft was disappointed.
“Without doubt, it's been a hard weekend here at Mallory for everyone in the team,” said. It's a technically demanding circuit so we felt the better option was to run a more experienced rider like Sean but it was all last minute and we never managed to get a test session prior to the meeting. The bad weather on Friday really affected us and we ultimately ran out of set-up time with Sean and the bike.”
“Sean felt a problem with the rear wheel quite early in the first race so he had little option to pull out and it's just one of those things that happens from time to time. His crash on the R1 saw him hurt his thumb so we decided it was best for everyone to withdraw from the second race.
With Jenkinson unlikely to be fit for the next round at
Oulton Park, SMT are on the look for a another new rider again.
“It's been a tough weekend but we've got our home round at Oulton Park next and we're all looking forward to that very much. Adam won't be fit, unfortunately, so we'll hopefully recruit a suitable rider between now and then to ensure we have a strong presence on the grid.”
