Thruxton BSB: Kennedy back on top in BSS

Jack Kennedy got revenge on Jack Scott in Sunday’s Quattro Group British Supersport & British GP2 Feature race at Thruxton with the Mar-Train Racing Yamaha rider just getting the better of Bradley Perie (Appleyard Macadam Yamaha), Scott (Kovara Projects/RS Racing One) and Luke Stapleford (Gearlink Kawasaki) after another thrilling battle.

Pole man Scott grabbed the lead off the line as Kennedy, starting from the second row, dropped back a couple of places but by the end of the first lap, the running order was Scott, Perie, Stapleford, Lee Johnston (Ashcourt Racing Yamaha), Kennedy and Jamie Perrin. Perie took the lead from Scott at the chicane at the end of the second lap with the duo 1.3s clear of new third place man Kennedy who now had Harry Truelove on the second Appleyard machine, Johnston and Stapleford behind him. Scott re-took the lead at the chicane third time around but all the time Kennedy was closing in and, indeed, just a lap later it was a three-way battle for the lead with the Dubliner lapping half a second quicker than the leader. Those three had a second gap to fourth which was now held by Johnston although Stapleford, Perrin and Truelove remained right in his wheel tracks. By lap five, Stapleford and Johnston had cut the gap to the leading trio to less than a second, with the Kawasaki man – running in tribute colours to former co-owner Norma de Bidaph - mounting a charge. Indeed, two laps later, it was a four-man battle for the lead – Johnston’s pace having dropped off and seen him fall into the clutches of Eugene McManus and Perrin – with Kennedy moving ahead of Perie at the same time. Lap nine, half race distance, saw Stapleford also move ahead of Perie but there was still only half a second covering