Under glorious blue skies and ideal track conditions, the PBM Kawasaki machines of Shane Byrne and Stuart Easton topped the time sheets. Easton made the most improvement in the session between the two Paul Bird Motorsport riders, ending up only 0.311 seconds behind the dominant and 4 times champion Shane “Shakey” Byrne – who dipped under lap record pace with a 48.1 second effort. Shakey is pictured here as he rounds the hairpin at Knockhill.
Elsewhere in the session, Josh Brookes (3rd) posted his fasted time of the day, as did Michael Laverty (4th), Christian Iddon (5th), Peter Hickman (6th), Luke Mossey (7th), Danny Buchan (8th) did the same. With further improvements the aim for tomorrow’s third practice session, before the Datatag Extreme Qualifying session at 4.05pm, it’s all set for an extremely dramatic day.
Local interest was also on Kelty resident Dennis Hobbs, the reigning Tri Options Ducati Champion and chief bike instructor at Knockhill. Dennis showed his local knowledge and class by heading the pack by almost half a second in the hard fought one make championship.
Tomorrow, Saturday 4th July is the main qualifying day for the MCE British Superbikes with their Datatag Extreme Qualifying session due at 4.05pm. Track action however starts at 8.45am tomorrow with all the classes qualifying and 5 races scheduled for the support classes. Tickets are available at the gate for £15 for adults, £9 for concessions and under 12s are free.