Sam Coventry an the Road & Race team travelled all the way to the cathedral of speed last weekend for the penultimate round of the BSB Championship. This was to be the third time he has ventured over the water to Assen in Holland, needless to say it is one of his favourite circuits. Arriving safely and with plenty of time to set up the truck awning and the bike before heading out on to the circuit for Free Practice Friday. Coventry said to the team “Conditions were very tricky but manageable” to the crew in pitlane, then making the decision to change the set up on the bike.
Saturday came along and so did the rain and it really was torrential forcing a late start as there was standing water on the track, it was now just a waiting game until the clouds cleared. Safely able to ride, the British Superbikes were out first which fortunately dried up a lot of the water considerably before Coventry made his appearance for qualifying, the time was ticking and his bike whistled over the line in 13rd place placing him on the outside next to Joe Collier on row 5 for the sprint race. Focused and nimble he went on his outlap, this is when the nerves kick in for rider, but sam nick named ‘Covey’ was as cool as a cucumber. He roared off the start line, wrenching the handle bars from side to side trying to keep control of the bike in windy conditions. He had a tremendous battle with riders from 11th to 18th and was running 13th until the most minor of mistakes was made coming out of the hair pin resulting in falling back to 17th. Buzzing from battling with so many riders thumbs up and had shakes all round on the cool down lap, the team was pleased with that but there was still room for improvement. The grid for the feature race on Sunday is made up of timings from the sprint race placing Coventry, 22 from Waterlooville in Portsmouth in 22nd place leaving him some work to do. They had a delayed start on race day as the rain decided it was going to fall just as they went on there green flag lap forcing them to pull in to the pit lane for a tyre change. With not much time at all to change and heat up tyres it was a race against the clock. Going out again for the out lap it had stopped raining. Proceeding to go on his green flag lap the rain came down again in sector 1 and 3. With a team decision of wet tyres he set off and it was the right decision as he made up places rapidly. Soon he was in 19th place overtaking riders on the inside of corners and even went for an outside move, the crowd gasped and cheered as it was a successful taking him up to 13th place. He battled with Joe Collier for the remainder of the race for 12th, both making some great moves but Coventry had the bike spinning on a wet curb on the last corner and he got pipped on the line. “I would like to say a massive thank you to all that travelled over to support me and my team ‘Road & Racing Performance’, my family and all of my great sponsors, Oxford Products, Kushitani, Tudor Installations, Pipe Werx, Purbrook Garage Services and Maxton Suspension.”
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AuthorSam Coventry Archives
November 2017
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