Whitham gives his verdict on the Oulton Park BSB melee

‘Action packed’ would be one way of describing the British Superbike Showdown opener at Oulton Park. Another description would be ‘crashfest’.

And while racing fans demand plenty of action for their money, accidents which wipe out several top riders and put and end to Tarran Mackenie’s title defence is pushing it a bit too far.

So what does ex-WorldSBK rider and commentator James Whitham make of it all? “I don’t think there was any single or direct cause for the four direct incidents in the three Superbike races but all unrelated.

“Starting with Peter Hickman going underneath Jason O’Halloran at Druids with Jason trying to square off the entrance, thereby being a little bit wide and a bit slower to get a good run at Tommy Bridewell out of the corner on the last lap.

“Hicky was going quite a bit quicker and it was his backside which caught Jason’s handlebar. In my opinion it was Peter to blame but it was not on purpose because he is a really safe rider, it was the last lap and it was one of those things.

“It is not for me to say what the penalty should have been but the problem is you have a load of people on Twitter who are Hickman fans or TT fans and there is more of them than O’Halloran fans and they can’t see that it was Hickman’s fault although Peter wouldn’t admit it.

“It was a slight mistake, he was coming from a long way back and Jason didn’t see him. We’ve all made mistakes, I certainly have and Peter held his hands up.

“Let’s talk about the incident with Tommy. It was more of a lunge for me, Jason didn’t see him and they ran right out. Jason didn’t fall off until his wheels were on the grass and they lost grip.”

BSN: But Tommy accused Jason of going too slowly…

“Exactly, I’m going to get to that. It was Tommy’s