WORLD ENDURANCE

As the rest of the British Superbike riders head to Silverstone for the penultimate round of the home series, Steve is travelling further afield to the South of France and the Magny Cours circuit where he will contest the 24-hour Bol d’Or World Endurance race for Kawasaki France.

Steve will be part of a three-man team contesting the race, which is also the final round of the World Endurance championship the other riders being Patrick Piot (France) and Joshua Brookes (USA) with Spanish rider Yvan Silva on standby as reserve rider. All four riders will take part in Thursday and Friday morning’s two practice sessions in preparation for the race start at 3pm. (2pm British time).

It will be a Le Mans type start where the first rider from each team sprints across the track to pick up the bike and race around the 2.64-mile circuit before returning to the pits to take on fuel and change riders.

“The fuel load lasts for around an hour so each rider has around an hour on the bike and two hours off,” said Steve. “We do get a bit of rest but it’s not worth trying to sleep during the 24 hours as it would make you feel worse. Anyway it is too noisy with bikes going around all the time and mechanics working in the pit garages.”

Steve last competed in the Bol d’Or in 1999 staged at it’s original home of Paul Ricard where he started the race from poll, set a new lap record which still stands today and completed the race in third place, a repeat of this would be very welcome and he said: “I have been on pole, broken the lap record and been on the podium but never won the race so am aiming to change that this weekend!

“But 24-hours is a long time to push a bike to its limits around a circuit and anything can and does happen to the best of teams. The bike is prepared and maintained by a first class back up crew and all we can do is ride it to the best of our ability to get it over the finish line in first place.”

Bol D'Or web site