Reynolds takes first World Superbike win

13 April 2012

John Reynolds took his first ever World Superbike race win as new champion Colin Edwards crowned his season by winning the last heat of the year for the Castrol Honda team at Brands Hatch today.  

For many of the 75,000 fans packing the Kent track star of the show was Nottingham's Reynolds, who scored his first World Superbike victory for Ducati in a thrilling opening leg and finished fourth in the second.

"The party starts now," said the 26-year-old Edwards from Conroe, Texas, after beating the Suzuki of Italy's Pierfrancesco Chili by fractionally over a second in race two.

Chili became the first superbike rider to mount the podium in his boxer shorts after flinging all his race equipment, from crash helmet to carbon fibre chest protector, into the crowd.

Edwards took over the lead after Britain's Neil Hodgson retired his Ducati with a massive oil leak, and fought off a late challenge from Chili. Troy Corser of Australia was third for the Aprilia team, passing Reynolds as Hodgson's crippled machine delayed his British rival.

It was a disappointing weekend for new British champion Hodgson, who started from pole position but only finished fourth in race one after surviving a collision with the Yamaha of Anthony Gobert.

Reynolds had the crowd on their feet as he built up a big lead on a wet track in race one. Reynolds gambled on the track staying wet for race two, but others assumed it would dry out and came back to challenge the Ducati rider.

"Wet tyres were the right choice for five or six laps, but after that it was just a struggle to survive," he said.

"It just means so much for me to win a round of the World Superbike championship in front of the home crowd. When we got to the last lap I could hardly believe it. I felt sure something was going to go wrong."

Edwards took the biggest gamble on tyres in race one, falling right down the order when conditions were at their worst.

A succession of fastest laps then brought him back into contention for the victory, but he fell on the damp surface with the leading trio almost within reach three laps from the end. Edwards remounted the battered Honda to finish 10th.

Of the other British riders, Chris Walker finished third and sixth on his Suzuki but James Haydon crashed his Ducati twice, both times at the Druids hairpin.

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