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James "Jimbo" Dawson took the Triumph Daytona to its first win in China beating the 2006 Champion John Congdon in the Supersports Class at the Zhuhai Superbike Championships on Saturday.
With just two of the 1000cc Superbikes in front of him Jimbo held off John, and the other 32 riders despite an oil overflow restricting air intake during the last half of the race. :"I absolutely determined to win that massive trophy and show everyone that today's Triumph bikes, and Kwik Tigi Racing, are really up there" .
In front of the whole race it was another great win for Track Torque's Nick Winthrope who, once he took the lead approaching turn 4 on the first lap, never looked back. Actually that's wrong - he looked back regularly but only wondering why he had such a commanding lead. Even before Jason Broome retired with mechanical problems at half distance, Nick had pulled out a more than 10 second lead. By the end of the race the Suzuki mounted rider was nearly 28 seconds ahead of second placed Karl Roe - also riding a Suzuki.
Despite some of the regular ZIC riders being missing, it was very wonderful to see such a large grid - 36 riders started the race more than any race in recent memory. And, despite Nick's massive winning margin, the quality of racing overall also improved with more than half of the finishers - 17 out of 30 - completing full distance.
Of the non-finishers Philip Wang gave the spectators the greatest scare when he highsided coming out of turn seven on his fourth lap. Having also fallen at the fast final corner during qualifying and bruising his fingers, Philip told me that "perhaps I have been riding a bit too aggressively today - but my lap times were good .. until I fell off !".
One rider who definitely finished, and on the lead lap, was young Chinese woman rider Wu Zia who, hot from her victory on the Production 150 at the China Superbike Championships, won Class 2 Superbikles in great style on her FYM sponsored Honda. Not sure that we can actually say that she "stayed on board" as Zia's acrobatic riding style gets her into some unbelievable positions with almost her whole body off the side as she corners. This style of hers is much more suited to the faster machinery than the production bikes as she is able to use her agility to get more corner speed and show the men who followed her just how it can be done ! Zia is an exciting prospect for the future of Chinese motorcycle racing and we hope to see her progress much further and spark extra interest amongst the Chinese public, media and sponsors.
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