James Ellison and Jentin Racing win at Croft

James Ellison
By Jentin-Racing.com
August 18 2004

James Ellison and the Jentin Racing Superbike team secured their fourth winning double in the Superbike Cup with the added bonus of a top ten finish outright in the British Superbike Championship in front of a capacity crowd at Croft.

Although there has been racing at the North Yorkshire circuit since the 1920's the majority of the British Superbike teams had never even been to the interesting and fast track. This made the Stroud based teams test day the previous week, to establish a base setting for the Yamaha YZF R1, all the more critical.

The team were able to make further improvements to the Yamaha during Friday practice and set the eleventh quickest time in the first qualifying session on Saturday. Ellison started from thirteenth on the grid as the second quickest Superbike Cup rider after the second session.

The first race saw Ellison make a solid start and he was thirteenth outright after the first lap. He then set about passing, amongst others, Australian Superbike champion Craig Coxhell, before coming home first in the Superbike Cup and eleventh overall.

The second race, with yet more small changes to the bike, saw Ellison move straight into the top ten where he enjoyed a titanic race long battle with the Virgin Mobile Yamaha of Steve Plater before eventually coming out on top as he rode a very strong race to finish ninth outright and first again in the Superbike Cup to visit the top step on the podium for the second time.

Team manager Bernard Toleman said that Ellison's strong finishes had allowed the team to further consolidate its position at the top of the Superbike Cup Championship.

"James has been able to carry his strong form from our last wild card start in World Superbikes at Brands Hatch, where he finished 5th and 6th through to this weekend. With our fourth double-header in the Superbike Cup and another top ten outright finish everything is looking good. We're edging further ahead in the Cup each round and getting in amongst the factory teams, which has always been our objective, so we are all very pleased."

Ellison also said that the weekend had gone according to plan.

"We were able to make further progress with the Pirelli tyres over the weekend with improvements from the first race to the second. I wanted to increase my lead in the Superbike Cup which we've done and I was hoping for two top ten outright finishes which we didn't quite get but all in all everything has gone according to plan."

The Jentin Racing team now begin preparations for the next British Superbike Championship round at Cadwell Park in Lincolnshire in a fortnight's time.