Strong points for Marty Nutt at Thruxton Superbike

Raceline Photography
By Louise Cain
April 18 2006

The high speed Thruxton circuit, in Hampshire, was the venue for the third round of the 2006 Bennetts British Superbike Championship.

Privateer Marty Nutt, on his Mark Johns/NuttTravel.com Honda, had a mixed result with a third place finish in race one, and a fourth in race two - scoring points to secure his third place in the Privateers’ Cup.

Thruxton has a very bumpy, abrasive surface, which makes set-up and tyre choice difficult, and that is where Nutt was struggling. “Race one I just struggled really badly getting the power down. I could run with the guys round the flowing bits, but when it came to the corners that needed the drive out of it, I wasn’t getting the drive. They were pulling out a gap on me. I could reel them in around the rest of it, but then it would happen all over again. It made it very hard because I couldn’t get close enough to people to get a pass, so people were able to pass me and I was slowly going down and couldn’t make my way back up. It was very frustrating for us,” he explained.

After the lack of drive experienced in race one, the team opted to go for a different tyre, as Nutt goes on to say, “For race two Dunlop got us another tyre, which wasn’t any worse but it was different. It was causing me problems as it was breaking away going into a turn, and then coming out of the turn it would slide like the other one but then grip, which was causing me a bit of a problem too.”

Looking on the bright side, as Nutt always does, he said, “We got two finishes out of it, which is points on the board. We will move on to Oulton and hopefully get back up there.”

There is a BSB test next weekend at Oulton Park, ahead of round four. However, the team feel it is more beneficial to get the bikes back to base and prepared before the next race. “With having to travel all the way back to Northern Ireland then back over again, and it would leave us no time to work at the bikes. Jarvis, my mechanic, has a full time job as well you know. It just can’t be done - we need to get the bikes looked at. We reckon we would lose out by going to Oulton rather than gain, so we have decided to opt out of that,” concluded Nutt.

The fourth round of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship takes place at Oulton Park, with qualifying on the 29th/30th April, with race day on Monday 1st May.