JR steals pole from under Rutter's nose.
In the second qualifying session at the fourth round of THINK! BSB at Oulton Park John Reynolds stole pole in the very last stages of the session. Michael Rutter, who had already stolen pole from the charging Dean Thomas, was then displaced to second. Thomas will start third with JR's team mate Kagayama in fourth.
In the second qualifying session from Oulton Park the leaders found it difficult to go faster than in the earlier qualifying for much of the session. Dean Thomas was the first to steal pole from John Reynolds with only seven minutes left on the clock.
In the second qualifying session at the fourth round of THINK! BSB at Oulton Park John Reynolds stole pole in the very last stages of the session. Michael Rutter, who had already stolen pole from the charging Dean Thomas, was then displaced to second. Thomas will start third with JR's team mate Kagayama in fourth.
In the second qualifying session from Oulton Park the leaders found it difficult to go faster than in the earlier qualifying for much of the session. Dean Thomas was the first to steal pole from John Reynolds with only seven minutes left on the clock.
HM Plant's Michael Rutter then stole Second place from JR, before improving again on the next lap to displace Thomas at the top. The Rizla team notified JR by pit board that he had been displaced to second, and in the time it took for him to circulate and enter the pits, Rutter had improved to take first.
Once in the pits, with only two and a half minutes left of the session and lying in third on the grid, the Rizla team changed the rear tyre of JR's bike in around forty seconds flat. This speedy tyre change allowed JR to go back out and complete his out lap with three seconds to spare before the chequered flag came out to end the session. Once JR started his flying lap, the collective audience held their breath and sure enough when JR came back round to cross the line he had taken pole back from Rutter and gone quicker than his own lap record by nearly a second.
JR's team mate, Yukio Kagayama, was unable to improve his time from the first qualifying session. His lap time is fast enough to see him in fourth on the front row for tomorrows racing, behind Sendo Ducati's Thomas.
Behind Kagayama, in fifth, is the top placed Virgin Yamaha of Gary Mason, closely followed by the Hawk Kawasaki of Scott Smart.
Masons Virgin Yamaha team mate, Steve Plater, had yet another unlucky accident.
After only fifteen minutes of the session the red flags came out to stop play. The reason? Bike four (Plater) and nine (Coxhell) fallers at Cascades. Visions of last weekend at Snetterton where immediately thought of where Coxhell had ploughed into the back of Plater and took them both out of the race in a bid for position.
It was later found out that the accident had nothing to do with either rider, but oil on the track had caused Coxhell and then Plater to fall. As a result, the very unlucky Plater has broken his left wrist and will be out of the racing tomorrow.
The guest riders from the WSBK Team Renegade Ducati, Leon Haslam and Noriyuki Haga, qualified a surprising eighth and fourteenth respectively. Lets hope their Pirelli wets are competitive as the forecasters predict rain for tomorrow's racing.
If this happens the top ten will be thrown wide open as experience will prevail around this highly technical undulating Cheshire circuit. The circuit, which has trees lining much of the track side, will turn into an ice rink in the rain and make for some highly enjoyable racing.
Combined qualifying BSB Oulton Park top ten
1.John Reynolds
2.Michael Rutter
3.Dean Thomas
4.Yukio Kagayama
5.Gary Mason
6.Scott Smart
7.Sean Emmett
8.Leon Haslam
9.Steve Plater (out)
10.Glen Richards
11.James Ellison *
(*) denotes championship cup contender
