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The Hacker gets the job done at Laguna
Sunday, 20 July 2008
Kawasaki´s substitute rider Jamie Hacking brought his borrowed Ninja ZX-RR home in an impressive eleventh place on his premier class debut at Laguna Seca.
Jamie Hacking, the 37-year-old AMA Superbike star, deputising this weekend for injured compatriot John Hopkins in the Kawasaki Racing MotoGP team, started Sunday´s U.S. contest from the last row of the grid, but rode a solid race to finish eleventh.
Anthony West struggled with a lack of front end feeling all weekend, and despite set-up changes made ahead of the morning warm-up session, he still lacked the confidence in the front grip to push hard in the race. The 27-year-old Kawasaki pilot eventually finished in seventeenth place, one lap down on race winner Valentino Rossi, bitterly disappointed with his whole Laguna weekend.
Jamie Hacking - eleventh
`I´m thrilled! I didn´t get the best of starts from the back of the grid, but if I´m honest I was a little relieved to see everyone pulling away and leaving me to ride my own race early on. With a fairly clear track I was able to find a good rhythm on the bike, and I was soon lapping in the low 1´23s bracket. I fought my way up to Ben Spies, and I was just thinking to have a bit of a breather when he looked back and saw who was behind him. As soon as he saw it was me he upped the pace and managed to pull enough of a gap that I couldn´t quite stay with him. The bike was working great, and the lap times were pretty consistent throughout the race, but then Toni Elias managed to work his way past me towards the end, which meant I just missed out on matching Roger Lee´s tenth place finish from last year. Even so, I´ve really enjoyed my weekend as a MotoGP racer and I´d like to thank Kawasaki for giving me the opportunity. Everyone made me feel really welcome, and they are a great team to work with.´
Anthony West - seventeenth
`This weekend has been a huge disappointment. I had the same problems in the race that I´ve been having all weekend; I just don´t seem to have the confidence in the front-end of the bike, and that meant I couldn´t push for a good lap time at all. It´s frustrating, as Jamie had the same problem at the beginning of the weekend but managed to ride around it. I need to go away from here and get it together during the summer break, so I can come back at Brno and try and score the results I know I´m capable of.´
TA
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