With Gary Gibson making a good recovery from his back injury, the Heads and All Threads team headed to Lyng, Norfolk, with Graeme Irwin and Harri Kullas for round two of the British Championship.
The Suzuki pairing had high hopes for the weekend, but both succumbed to lady luck, none more so than Irwin, in MX1.
Sitting sixth fastest after qualifying, Irwin was setting the stage for an impressive result at the fast paced sandy circuit.
After narrowly missing the holeshot in race one, Irwin fought off the relentless push from fifth place, but he was forced to push his stricken RM-Z450 across the line for sixth after a trapped stone had snapped the chain.
Despite taking the holeshot in race two, and gating well in the third, Irwin’s string of bad luck continued with him losing his chain in both races, at exactly the same point of the track. He managed to get going again in race two, but could only salvage 20th place and a single point.
Race three took the day from bad to worse resulting in a DNF, with Irwin ending the event in a disappointing 15th overall.
“Absolutely gutted,” said a bitterly disappointed Graeme Irwin. “I was feeling really strong. Luckily, I managed to push across the line and only lost two places in the first race, but losing the chain in all three is hard to take.
“It was just bad luck, no fault of the team, or the bike. We’ll just move on and take my speed to rest of the series.”
Harri Kullas’ day was far from ideal too. In race one his RM-Z250 suffered with an electrical issue early on, and he plummeted to the back of the field.
Self confessing to struggling with concrete starts, he failed to get away with the front group in race two, and found it hard to push forward through the mid pack, crossing the line in 19th.
Kullas managed to find a few more lines in race three, and better recovered from another bad start to pass the chequered in 15th, finishing the day in 21st overall.
“The first race is one of those things, sometimes you just have problems,” said Harri Kullas. “In the second I just span on the concrete start and came together with the guys next to me, I was too far back and just couldn’t find the lines to come through.
“I managed to relax more in the third race, and came back to a better 15th. We’ll just move on to the next round and look to improve.”
Team Manager, Neil Prince commented: “I’m completely gutted for Graeme to be honest, he was riding amazing at the weekend. I think a stone got in there and snapped the chain in the first race.
“We changed everything to do with the drivetrain, I just can’t work it out. We’ve done so many hours with the RM-Z450, and have never seen anything like it.
“Harri’s bike was running fine in the first race, but an electrical problem caused it to lose power. From the past couple of weeks practising we’ve had, and from his lap times, we can see the bike’s working well. He just needs to get out of the gate.”
