By Phil Wain
May 16 2005

Guy Martin’s strong start to the year came to an abrupt halt at Mondello Park over the weekend when he was forced to miss the British Superstock Championship race. Guy was making his series début for the Barron Transport Services team and began well, ending Friday’s free practice in 17th place. He dropped down the order to 21st after first qualifying, but was still confident of climbing into the top fifteen. However, just a few laps into the second and final qualifying session, he fell from the BTS Suzuki, damaging his shoulder and, rather than risk further injury, opted to sit out the remainder of the meeting.

A disappointed Guy commented: “I was really looking forward to making my début in the British Superstock Championship and, although it’s a really competitive series, I was confident of getting a good result. After a few early problems, which were to be expected as I’d never seen the bike until Friday, we’d got a decent set-up and were looking good for final qualifying. Just a couple of laps into the session though I went down, landing heavily on my shoulder and although I could have tried to continue we took the sensible option and withdrew.”

“It’s really disappointing for the team, who have worked really hard getting the bike prepared for me, but I couldn’t take the risk of making it worse with the North West 200 getting underway on Tuesday and the TT so soon after that. The shoulder is very sore at the moment but, hopefully, it’s only bruised so we’ll give it our best shot this week and see how we go. If it’s still a bit painful, I’ll take it easy and concentrate on getting fully prepared for the TT, which is the main event of the year for me.”

Guy has already travelled up to the Causeway Coast with practice for the International North West 200 road races commencing at 5pm on Tuesday evening. He is entered for five races in total, with two outings in both the Superbike and Supersport classes as well as the Superstock event.