Iddon joins battle for last silverware

North motor sport with ZOE BURN

BRITISH Superbike rider Christian Iddon will round out his season at Mallory Park today as he tackles the Race of the Year.

The Blaydon racer will be back aboard his Buildbase Suzuki as he heads into today’s event at the Leicestershire track.

Set to line up alongside the likes of former winner Richard Cooper and his BSB team-mate Danny Kent today, the action looks set to be fierce as the riders battle for that final piece of silverware of the season.

Originally, Iddon had hoped to return to yesterday’s Sunflower Trophy meeting in County Down, Northern Ireland but last week revealed he would not be competing and instead hopes to return in 2023.

As he heads into today’s race, Iddon remains in a reflective mood following a difficult end to the 2022 season.

After what had been an up and down year, he picked up an injury at Oulton Park in September which ruled him out of Donington Park a week later, but he managed to make a return for last weekend’s Brands Hatch finale.

However, like everyone else, the event was blighted by the death of Chrissy Rouse a week earlier. Iddon had become a close friend of Chrissy’s shortly after moving to the region a few years ago.

On Saturday, he joined the likes of myself and former racer Josh Corner of South Shields to remember our friend in an emotional Eurosport tribute where he broke down in tears and said “I’ll really miss him.”

However, he later had to put the feelings aside as he took to the track for the first of three races, where he was unlucky to be taken out by another rider on the final lap.

But he was able to bounce back on Sunday as he fought through the pain to grab a seventh and a ninth to end the year with two solid top-10s.

“It was a difficult weekend,” he admitted. “My hand wasn’t as bad as I expected but it wasn’t 100%.

“I struggled a bit getting into the positions I wanted to, certainly in left-handers. I didn’t feel very sharp, but I can’t use that as a complete excuse.

“Qualifying was terrible… and then I got taken out on the last lap of the first race. It was frustrating and sort of resembles our season – every time we felt like we were making progress and improving, something would knock us back.

“In the last two races we were just missing a few tenths and I didn’t have a great feeling with the front.

“I think I was overworking the rear to compensate but we managed a couple of top 10s despite the issues.

“It’s been a tough couple of weeks – and a difficult season – but that’s how it goes sometimes.”