Stafford Continues to Push for Home!

Silverstone hosted the 8th and penultimate meeting of the British Supermoto Championship at Stowe Circuit last weekend running in tandem with the penultimate round of the British Superbike Championship. Stafford intent on continuing his dominance and with a healthy lead in the championship achieved two firsts and a third to take 1st place overall on the podium at the Saturday meeting, and extend his lead by a further 12 points.

Unusually for Supermoto, all three races were tarmac only races, normally the circuit would be half road, half dirt and Stow was to prove a long and fast circuit

Despite this Ben attained his 8th pole position in the current campaign and led from the start into the first tight right hand bend in Race 1. Stafford found himself pushed all the way by his second place rival and after 2 laps the race was purely down to the two front runners after gapping the third place rider by 6 seconds. The remaining 5 laps were neck and neck with both riders making errors but Stafford never redeemed his first place position and rode over the line only a tenth of a second ahead.

In race 2 Stafford found himself in second position out of the first tight right hand bend, and began his battle to overtake. Before the end of the first lap and a mistake by the race leader into a tight lefthander Stafford had no where to go and both the leader and Stafford crashed off allowing the entire field to overtake. After taking several seconds before restarting and almost a lap down Stafford started to pick his way through the field and pushed the KTM to his limits. When the last lap flag was raised Ben was in 4th position and continued to push on and overtook the 3rd place rider on the line to take the place.

In race three Ben got the hole shot into the first corner and maintained his lead throughout, second and third places changed behind but Stafford’s lead was never under pressure to the chequered flag.

With just three races remaining Stafford cannot afford to become complacent but would be delighted to finish with three top results at the last meeting to complete an impressive year.

At the Sunday meeting, riding in the Elite Class and Stafford’s third outing on the D3 KTM 350cc, he once again showed fortitude to improve on his previous results. It was to prove difficult to compete with 450cc and upwards but Stafford remained unfazed by the bigger engines and rode to a well justified 7th position in qualifying out of a field of 20 riders.

The first race proved to be fast and furious into the first corner and after much bunching Stafford came through the first lap in 8th position. Continuing his normal work ethic Stafford pushed on and overtook to gain 7th, which he maintained throughout the 10 lap race.

Race two proved no less furious and after the first corner Stafford emerged 7th in the field, trying to maintain his position was difficult and rider 217 Richard Sharp pushed hard and eventually passed on lap 7, but undaunted Stafford continued to race hard and maintain 8th to the chequered flag.

In Race three a similar pattern emerged and from the drop of the flag the pace once again was very fast on this long track and Ben settled himself down to business after the melee of the first two tight bends and finding himself in 8th position at lap one. On the third outing on this standard 350cc machine Stafford’s pace even down the long strait almost matched the speed of the larger machines and after some neat overtaking manoeuvres Stafford crossed the line in fantastic and well earned 6th position.

Stafford now moves on to the 25th Superbiker meeting at Circuit De Mettet, Belgium on the 7th/8th/9th October, rubbing shoulders with some of the worlds best supermoto riders, before completing his years British Supermoto Championship at local circuit, Cadwell Park (Round 9) on November 4th and 5th.