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Aintree - Blistering Pace See Records Tumble.................................Back To Reports and News
13th June 2009
 This weekend saw round two off ‘The Ace of Aintree Championship’ take place at the world famous race course in Liverpool. Glorious sun shine and the competitiveness shown in round one, promised a very exciting days racing.
Alex continues to use the Ace championship as testing time, while he continues to familiarise himself with the traits of his 180Hp ASTRO Kawasaki ZX10 Super Stock motorcycle.
There had also been a lot of work carried out on the ASTRO Kawasaki during the break and the meeting was also serving as a shake down, before the team head to Snetterton in Norfolk next weekend for round 5 of the British Super Bike Championship. As it happens it was the right decision as after only 4 laps of practice Alex returned to the pits after losing drive to the back wheel.
With the problem fixed and his mechanic taking full blame for the incident, Alex took to the track for the Super Bike Qualifier, with a good start and doing all he needed to do Alex took the win and secured Pole position for the final to be held later that day.
A disappointing slot for the Power Bike Qualifying race didn’t bode well for the Scottish Youngster drawing 18th position as they lined up on the grid. None the less, another good start and outstanding performance through out the race seen him finish in second position to the current ‘Ace of Aintree Champion’ Greg Lewis.
The ‘Super Bike Final’ had a surprise in store for him, when going down ‘Railway straight’ the fastest part of the Aintree circuit at 170 mph the front end of his bike started to judder, Alex managed to control the bike for the rest of the race but the problem obviously slowed him and he could only manage 3rd as they crossed the line with Lewis taking the win and Mike Walker taking 2nd.
The problem was traced to the front tyre, which had started to deform slightly, Our budget does not stretch to fitting new tyres for every race, at the moment we are using the used tyres from the BSB meetings, with another tyre fitted to his bike, the riders lined up for the Power Bike Final.
It had been promised all day, the blistering pace from previous races and the knowledge that this was the last race of the day for these riders and what is turning out to be the shear competitiveness of this championship predicted something special lay ahead.
As the 24 riders lined up on the grid, The front row of, Greg Lewis, Alex Gault, Mike Walker and Tony Rainford were all capable of taking the win. As the start lights went out it was Alex who took the lead and pulled a 15 meter gap on the chasing trio, as the race developed it was Greg Lewis who took up the chase, setting a stunning new lap record of 55.036 the first time an average lap has passed the 100mph barrier - 100.407 mph.
Alex responded setting his fastest lap of the race with a 55.407 and maintained his lead until the end of the race, breaking the outright race record with an amazing average speed of 98.35 mph completing the 7 lap, 10.75 mile race in 6:33.3 sec’
Aintree Race Circuit website www.aintreemotorcycleracingclub.co.uk
Video - view Alex aboard the ASTRO Kawasaki ZX10R at Aintree Here
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