Jake Archer Knockhill 2016
Jake Archer Scores a 2nd and 5th at Knockhill
The fourth round of the Hel Performance Motostar Championship took place at the Knockhill circuit in Scotland. Knockhill is a short circuit, just 1.3 miles long and its location can mean the weather plays a significant factor in races.
The weather for the free practice session on Friday morning was bright and the City Lifting team rider, Jake Archer quickly showed why he has been finishing on the podium so far this year. His lap time of 54.147 was set on his final lap (lap 29) during the 30 minute session and put him second in the timings at this early stage
Despite showers during the day the first of the two qualifying sessions was completed in dry conditions on the Friday afternoon. Jake Archer pushed hard and was running third quickest, despite problems with his gears, when a red flag came out after an accident to a rider with three minutes remaining. When the session restarted he managed to put in an even faster time and moved up to second with a lap time of 53.932 as only two riders broke into a 54 second lap.
On the Saturday the riders completed the second qualifying session of the weekend. Within a few laps of the session Jake Archer had already beaten his Friday’s best qualifying time. Archer went on to further improve his lap time finishing with a 52.631. Whilst this was a reduction of over six tenths of a second he was unable to achieve pole position and would start the first race on the Sunday in the middle of the front row.
In race one on Sunday morning Jake rcher made a good start entering the first corner in second place. Despite riding his bike to the maximum he was unable to match the KTM of Charlie Nesbitt who managed to open a lead over the other riders at the front. Unable to battle for the win Archer focused on getting the maximum from his machine to ensure he took second position. He successfully maintained a comfortable gap over the third placed rider to collect another second place finish at the end of the 16 laps.
The second race of the day was a 22 lap event. A number of riders had failed to get to the pit lane in time as the rain started to come down and the teams were changing tyres. This included Charlie Nesbitt and Ed Rendell so Jake Archer was left on his own on the front row of the grid. Jake managed to initially grab this opportunity as he pulled away at the start. With the other front two grid positions vacant it had also enabled the riders from the second row to get away quickly too. Jake was closely pursued by Eugene McManus for the first third of the race. They had opened a small gap over the others but as the rce went on Ed Rendell caught them both up and overtook them on lap nine. In difficult conditions there were a good few fallers and Jake wasn’t feeling the confidence in the bike that he usually experiences. In the end he felt unable to push as hard as he would have wanted but still managed to bring the bike home in a very respectable fifth position.
Jake Archer
”In the first race I did everything I could to try nd stay with Charlie [Nesbitt] but he was unbelievably fast. I rode as hard as I could and got a good second place. In the second race I struggled a bit. I had had a fall in warm up in the morning and with the rainy conditions I didn’t have as much confidence as I would have liked. Anyway we leave with another solid set of points and look forward to Snetterton. Thanks as always to the City Lifting team and all my sponsors.”
Jake Archer remains second in the Hel Performance Motostar Championship on 103 points. What a huge achievement!