It was a bitter-sweet weekend for the Wyberton-based G&S Racing Kawasaki team despite all three riders performing well at Cadwell Park.
In front of a massive crowd, the team had one of their best Saturdays of the year with Kevin Keyes qualifying in third place and TJ Toms fifth in the Pirelli Superstock 600 championship round.
Milo Ward also secured a fine 20th place in his qualifying for the Superstock 1000 race.
Keyes was unfortunate to crash in his race, while Toms went on to secure a fine fourth place and Milo Ward brought the team a strong 16th.
But their efforts were overshadowed by the tragic death of Tat Taylor, one of the team’s loyal sponsors and friend of many years who was sadly killed in a motorcycle accident on his way home from the circuit on Saturday evening.
All three riders decided to honour him by continuing to ride at Cadwell.
Keyes had been on the pace throughout the weekend and never outside of the top three during free practice and qualifying and held pole position until the final few seconds of the session when he was bumped down to second place.
He was anticipating a good race and was hopeful of a podium finish but his efforts came to nothing when he crashed heavily on lap three, causing a red flag situation.
Meanwhile, Toms had settled into third place when the red flag halted the race. At the restart the riders had hardly completed the first lap when a red flag again brought racing to a halt, this time because of rain.
At the restart, shorten to just seven laps, Toms rode well and held third place through the majority of the seven laps.
A frantic last lap saw third place exchanged between TJ and Korie McGreevy but the Irishman managed to make his final pass stick at the bottom of the mountain which denied TJ his podium finish.
In the Stock 1000 race Milo Ward put in a mega performance and completed his qualifying in 20th position.
He started the 12-lap race from the seventh row and was involved in a seven rider battle for 12th place and just missed out to finish in a close 16th (0.3s away from 12th).
