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WBSK Miller Park, Checa and Rea take podium finish

In SBK

03 giugno 2009

WBSK Miller Park, Checa and Rea take podium finish

Carlos Checa (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) scored a second place finish in race one at Miller Motorsports Park today and in race two his team-mate Jonathan Rea (Hannspree Ten Kate Honda CBR1000RR) secured a fighting third place, promoting each rider up the championship standings.

After a superb qualifying performance, finishing second on the grid, Checa rode hard in an aggregated race one, and although he was unable to get close to the race winner Ben Spies, Carlos took his best finish of the year by some distance with his runner-up slot. This was his first podium finish of 2009, and although he fell in race two, while chasing another podium finish, he is now ninth in the championship table, one place up on his previous standing.

Race one, stopped and restarted because of a crash which saw Karl Muggeridge fall and stay on the track for some time, had three Hondas in the top five places, with Ryuichi Kiyonari (Ten Kate Racing Honda CBR1000RR) and Rea fourth and fifth respectively. They had been third and 11th respectively in Superpole.

In the second race of the day, a full 21-laps from start-to-finish, Spies won from Michel Fabrizio, with Rea fighting all the way to take third, as he headed up a battle which involved six other riders at some points.

Leon Haslam (Stiggy Racing Honda CBR1000RR) was a disappointed 12th in Superpole but completed the top ten in race one, after a tough multi-rider fight in each of the two aggregate legs. He was pushing for the podium against Rea when he fell on the last lap of race two, in the same fashion Checa did, when his alternator cover also touched down on a kerbstone.

Kiyonari was to finish race two in fifth place, part of the fighting group from first to last.

Jake Zemke (Stiggy Racing Honda CBR1000RR) was 23rd on the grid, and 18th on aggregate in race one. Set-up improvements moved him to 15th in race two, scoring a single point.

Tommy Hill (Honda Althea CBR1000RR) who had qualified only 25th after crashing and hurting his left foot, did not race at Miller, after discussion with his team.

In the overall championship standings, Rea is top Honda, rider, fourth overall on 133 points, Haslam slipped from fourth to sixth, on 122, and Kiyonari is eighth, on 96 points.

The next round is at Misano, on June 21.