Tough Weekend for Schoots.

Team ILR's Nadieh Schoots experienced a tough weekend as the latest round of the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 Championship took place at Oulton Park.

Nadieh's weekend had barely got underway when she crashed out of the first qualifying session at Druids, with her right shoulder taking the brunt of the crash and resulting in a painful injury to her rotator cuff and muscles.

Schoots then had an anxious wait to see if she would be passed fit to take any further part in the weekend's action.
Thankfully she was allowed to continue, and with great determination she qualified the ZX-10R for Sunday’s 14-lap race, albeit from Row 11 on the grid.

Nadieh was in obvious discomfort during the race and, with little or no strength in her arm at times, was struggling to hold the big Kawasaki round the challenging Cheshire circuit, nevertheless she still managed to come home in a gritty 26th place.


Team ILR owner/manager Ian Lougher:

"Oulton was literally an up and down meeting for both Nadieh and her team-mate Connall Courtney. Nadieh had a crash in Q1 on her first flying lap and hurt her shoulder, but managed to get back out for Q2 and improve her times over the last meeting in May, which was good."

Nadieh Schoots: 

“I lost strength very quickly during the race and I'm just happy to have finished. I'm homeward bound now for plenty of rest, but I will be back stronger at Donington!

A big thank-you to my team."



Phillips back at the sharp end.

It was something of a bittersweet weekend for Sandown Racing's Carl Phillips in the latest round of the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship at Oulton Park.

Thanks to a lot of hard work by Carl and his team, with a lot of input and assistance from Team ILR owner/manager Ian Lougher, the weekend brought an end to the awful run of handling problems in recent rounds which resulted in Carl losing his place at the top of the standings. However another win for Jordan Weaving has extended his championship lead to 16 points, with Phillips currently second.

Free practice and Qualifying 1 took place in cold, overcast conditions with Phillips third quickest, and in the second session Carl went one better to qualify the ZX-6R on the front row of the grid in 2nd place, a performance that did his confidence the world of good.

Carl must have thought his run of bad luck had returned on race day as he got a terrible start which relegated him to 8th place at the end of the opening lap, but showing great maturity he didn't panic and quickly settled into a good race rhythm which brought him the third fastest lap of the race.

With a lap to go he was pushing for a podium place with Lewis Rollo, but wisely decided to play it safe and bring the Kawasaki home in fourth.

Ian Lougher: 

"Carl had a very respectable Oulton after he worked hard on machine set up, and we tried something new for the race which worked really well.

But after a terrible start he found himself in 8th on the first lap after qualifying 2nd, but rode hard setting the 3rd best lap of the race and eventually finishing 4th.

Unfortunately his main rival in the series Jordan Weaving is on a roll.

It's only a few days now until we set up at Donington Park for the next round, so it's onwards and upwards."

Carl Phillips:

"Finished fourth, could have went for third, but didn't want to get tangled with Lewis, who was riding very well. 

So I settled for the points to keep my championship hopes alive.

Jordan Weaving looks as if he's on rails at the moment so I'm going to need the luck of the Irish to pull this off.

Next weekend it's Donington, a circuit I like, so let's hope Team #32 can push at the front again.

Big thank-you to all my sponsors, to my pit crew, to Lizzie, and to Ian Lougher and all at Team ILR."


The next round takes place this weekend at Donington Park, and with Oulton Park seeing Carl back to the sort of form that saw him dominate the earlier rounds, it's still very much 'game on' as the championship enters the business end of the season.