FIM Superstock 2006 Beowulf Racing Nick Henderson

Australian superbike sensation Nick Henderson and the British-based Beowulf Racing team began their assault on the 2006 FIM Superstock 1000 Cup today at the Spanish circuit of Valencia. By the end of this afternoon’s opening qualifying session the Suzuki-mounted Henderson lay in 27th place with a best lap of 1:42.528. The 22-year old Australian is just over three seconds away from Italian Luca Scassa’s (MV Augusta) leaderboard-topping time of 1:39.286 and has lopped almost two seconds from the times he set during this morning’s free practice session.

Having spent the past week at the circuit to familiarise himself with the track, Henderson found his Suzuki GSX-R1000K6 turning a little too quickly for his liking during the morning session, which was red-flagged towards the end after 4 riders crashed out on an oil slick.
Completing 21 laps of the 2.5-circuit this afternoon, Nick was running in 25th place as the session entered its final few minutes. The Australian wisely used the session to experiment with suspension settings to his machine as well as changing a tyre.

Through the speed traps, the Beowulf Suzuki is no slouch. Henderson's best top speed recording of 170.875mph, was the seventh-fastest of the session.

“I came to Europe for a challenge, and this is most certainly a challenge” said Henderson afterwards. “Valencia is a fantastic facility but it’s a lot more tight and twisty than I’m used to riding back home.
I’m surprised how late the guys here leave their braking and if I work on that tomorrow we should see a further drop in lap times.”

“It’s been a reasonable start today” commented Team Manager Andy Stone.
“Although Superstock is meant to be a class for developing young riders, Nick’s been up against a lot of people with a lot of experience at this track today. We’ll do a comprehensive debrief tonight and I’m confident tomorrow will bring a further improvement.”

Saturday brings another 30-minute free practice session for the Superstock competitors in the morning followed by a 25-minute qualifying session in the afternoon. The riders absolute best lap time, set in either of the two sessions, will determine the grid for Sunday’s 13-lap race.

FIM SUPERSTOCK 1000 CUP, RD 1 VALENCIA
Qualifying Session 1 Results
1 Luca Scassa (Ita) MV Augusta 1:39.286
2. Ivan Silva (Esp) Kawasaki 1:39.556
3. Allessandro Polita (Ita) Suzuki 1:39.742
27. Nick Henderson (Aus) Suzuki 1.42.528