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15/7/2000

Oulton Park

Parked at Oulton

Oulton Park has been good for Sigma until this weekend. The circuit, with its real world road style suits the Ducati's handling. Free practice on Friday was good, no problems with resetting the chassis to the settings that worked so well for Paul at the May race. On Saturday the first session was barely underway when Paul's recent run of bad luck struck again.

On the fourth lap of practice he was coming through Druids corner, a very fast right hander when he caught up with Chris Sherring on the California Racing School Yamaha. Sherring, obviously still warming up, changed line mid corner and Paul went straight in to his rear tyre.  Still leaned over, the impact was directly to the fragile fuel injection computer and instrument area. Paul was OK with just a headache despite hitting the steel barriers with his crash helmet after the bike cleared the protective straw bales out of the way.

Paul said 'I just couldn't believe it, I was just warming up and was coming up the track real steady and He just moved in front of me, there was no where to go. The bike is just wrecked, the team doesn't have enough parts to fix it here'.

Neil Spalding said 'It is obviously very disappointing, we can always get good speed, we build a fast bike. Paul set the fourth fastest speed through the speed trap in just those four laps on Saturday morning.  No one did much more than a mile an hour faster all weekend, but this run of bad luck is just amazing.'

'We will do our best to be back but we do not have the parts, or currently the budget, to be able to say when.  Our prime reason for racing, other than enjoying the competition is to prove our Ducati preparation skills, I am confident that we have done that and as a result we can hold our heads up in any company.  In the last three years of racing Ducati's at national and international level we have only suffered one mechanical DNF.

Sigma Performance and Paul Jones' racing is supported by; Robert Fearnell, Donington Park Circuit, Ducati UK, Dunlop, Lloyd Lifestyle, Glenns Motorhome & Leisure, Rock Oil, AFAM USA, DID chain, Ferodo and Champion Spark Plugs.

We are still actively pursuing further partners for our race programme. We have not signed a major associate yet and have not as yet had to commit to any particular colour scheme, the bike, rider and team could therefore be fully committed to a major sponsors corporate image'. For full details of the team and our previous adventures please see our website at www.sigmaperformance.com

 © Neil Spalding 2000. All rights reserved

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