By Bernard Toleman
May 31 2004

The Jentin Racing British Superbike team and rider James Ellison maintained their lead in the Superbike Cup, but certainly did not have the luck of the Irish on their side for their first visit to Dublin’s Mondello Park.

With upgrades made to the brakes and the installation of a slipper clutch on the Yamaha R1, the Jentin Racing team were looking forward to their first visit to the Emerald Isle. What they had not counted on was the slow and bumpy nature of the Mondello Park circuit, which caused problems with tyres and chassis set-up.

The first qualifying session saw Ellison record the thirteenth quickest time. For the second session the team made a conscious decision to concentrate on trying to improve the race set-up still further, rather than just looking for one quick qualifying lap, and subsequently did not improve on the first session time and started from seventeenth on the grid.

For the first race, Ellison made one of his characteristic flying starts and was soon in the top ten. Unfortunately, the hard work was to be undone during the last few laps as the circuit began to take its toll on the tyres and, as they went off, he was caught by several riders - eventually finishing thirteenth outright and fourth in the Superbike Cup.

The misfortune continued in the second race when Ellison was taken out in a multiple collision on the first corner, along with two other riders. He reported that it hadn’t been the best of weekends.

“Everything seems to have conspired against us this weekend. Neither the team nor I had been to Mondello before. The circuit is slow and bumpy which made chassis set-up extremely difficult. Add to this, problems with the tyres and being taken out in the second race there was not much left that could go wrong. Hopefully we’ve taken our entire dose of bad luck in one bitter pill and the rest of the season will be trouble free.”

Team principal Jon Poole reported that the incident in the second race summed up the team’s weekend.

“After the first corner coming together in race two James bravely picked up the bike in order to continue with the race. Once restarted he quickly realised the gear linkage had been badly bent during the accident and returned to the pit garage to get a new one fitted. After this was done and a quick assessment of the damage was made to ensure that it was safe to do so, James returned to the circuit.

“Unbeknown to the team, James had returned to the pits via the shortest route possible but, in doing so, was deemed to have left the circuit and, after being advised of this, the team was forced to reluctantly signal him to pit and withdraw from the race.

“It was not a good weekend for us and we are now looking forward to the next round at Thruxton, where we are confident of better results!”