BMC Racing: BSB Final Round - A Top Ten Special!

The weekend of October 8-10th saw the BSB championships reach it's conclusion. Held at Oulton park in Cheshire, BMC Racing were there to compete in the final round of the 2010 Metzeler 600 Superstock championship. It was a three day affair...qualifying was over two days...one on the Friday, and one on the Saturday - with the top forty riders qualifying for the race on the Sunday. And Leon was eager to get well and truly stuck in!

The first qualifying session (on the Friday) went well, with Leon putting in some great lap times to finish twenty first overall. This put him well and truly in contention, and we all hoped for more of the same on the Saturday. His best time of 1:44:198 was only a couple of seconds off the leading riders pace, so things were looking good.

The second qualifying session (on the Saturday) was another story. In fact, it was an amazing story! Leon seemed to rise to the occasion, and very quickly put in some blistering lap times. After barely completing a handful of laps, Leon had already stuck in a lap time of 1:42:563...a fantastic lap! Only a second off the pole position pace too! And was enough to put Leon eighth on the grid for the race...YES...THE SECOND ROW! An incredible achievement! One that highlights just how much Leon has improved throughout the year, and certainly helped to negate the tricky year of injuries that he has had to endure. I looked at the sector times afterwards, and Leon was the fourth fastest in sector one ahead of the likes of Luke Stapleford, Josh Day and Danny Buchan. Wow! We were all over the moon and really looked forward to race day and watching Leon have some fun at the sharper end of the action.

Race day came, the weather was good and everyone's mood was upbeat. The 600 Superstock race was the first of the day, just after all the warm-up events had finished. I decided to head down to Lodge Corner. I was actually hoping to get across the track and go and film the start grid from outside of the track, but due to events being held up, all track crossings were cancelled. This was a shame as I would have liked to get some individual footage of the team on the start line on such a special day. So I settled for watching all the action from the exit of Lodge, that way at least I could see down the start and finish straight from a distance.

As I saw the pack of riders come round on the sighting lap, the excitement was building. It was quite emotional in fact! It's moments like this that make the hard work and effort all worthwhile. Then there were two warm-up laps before the race finally got underway. I positioned myself right under a loud speaker so that I could hear exactly what was happening at all times round the circuit.

The lights went on...then off! The roar of the pack was immense! And it was an incredible sight to watch them all dissappear off down towards Old Hall Corner for the first time. There was a bit of a pile-up at turn one though, but it was more towards the back of the pack so I tended to assume that Leon wasn't involved. My attention then went straight to the commentator as he tried to quickly make sense of how everyone was settling in to the race. There wasn't any mention of Leon on the opening lap, as all the attention was on the guys who were in with a shout at the title. But it wasn't long before the roar could be heard again as they all teared down the back straight down in to Lodge. I watched intensely as I counted the riders coming round the corner one by one. Leon was tenth! A great start, even though he got slightly boxed in going in to Old Hall. But he looked like he had settled in well with the leading bunch of riders.

Over the next few laps Leon climbed up to eighth place. He was now in a four way scrap for fifth position along with the likes of Josh day, who was one of the main title contenders. Lap by lap they came flying round as a group until an extra rider joined them and passed both Leon and Josh. So Leon was now in ninth, but he was along way ahead of the next rider...so a top ten finish looked good. This is how it then stayed right to the end, you could've thrown a blanket over them they were that close! Leon sat comfortably behind Josh and followed him home to see him crowned as champion, and in doing so Leon took his very first championship points at this level. It was a terrific race to watch, there was clearly a lot of fun being had out there, and finishing ninth amongst such quality was a testament to how well Leon, Mike and the whole team have worked this season. And to top it all off, when we looked at the timesheet, Leon was the fifth fastest...now that's a result!

So there you have it, a marvelous weekend indeed. And just goes to show that Leon really belongs in this championship. So let's hope we can secure enough funding to allow us to have a good crack at the full championship next season...