24/5/10 - Another hard weekend for Hicky
Despite losing a full day of free practice because of an engine problem, Louth rider Peter Hickman was able to score a brace of 13th places on the Ultimate Racing Yamaha R1 in round four of the British Superbike championship at Cadwell Park on Sunday.
Being a day behind the rest of the field with regards to practice, Hicky had to use all his resources to pull something out of the bag in qualifying on Saturday and he did well to qualify in 16th place. He was promoted a place on the grid when Gary Mason was forced to withdraw following a crash and was to make a start from the fifth row for Sunday’s 18-lap opener.
“We had a problem with the engine on Friday but unfortunately we didn’t have the required parts to fix it so we had to take the engine out and split it to see what exactly was wrong,” explained Hicky. “It turned out that one of the components was incorrect and should not have been there. It’s not anyone’s fault, just one of those things. But we don’t have a spare engine so we worked until 12.30am on Friday night to rebuild it. Then today of course we are a day behind everyone so we are on the back foot a bit really. But considering all our problems we are not that far away and if we could have found another half a second or so we could have been up in the top 10.”
As the first of two races got underway Hicky maintained his position of 15th, eventually moving through to 13th place. Although he was right on the tail of Adam Jenkinson he was unable to find that little bit extra power to overtake him and ended the race in 13th place.
“The race went quite well actually,” said Hicky. “I made a good start but unfortunately someone got in my way and going into the first turn I had to shut off which messed up my good start. But after that I got away fairly cleanly and made steady progress. I was held up behind Adam Jenkinson at half race distance and just couldn’t manage to get past him. I was quicker than him in a few places but unfortunately they were the places that you can’t really pass people. If I had been able to get past I know I would have pulled away. I am a little bit disappointed as we are still on the back foot after Friday.”
Race two went much the same way with Hicky dicing with Ian Lowry but the race was red flagged on lap 15 when another rider crashed heavily which left Hicky to finish in 13th place once again.
With the three points accrued in each of the two races Hicky finds himself in 17th position on 19 points in the rider standings.
The next round is on June 27 at Mallory Park but unless Hicky can find a sponsor willing to fund him he will be unable to make the grid at the Leicestershire circuit as his race budget has already been used to keep the Ultimate Racing Yamaha on track.
