It was very much a tale of two races for Shane Byrne this weekend as the showdown got underway for the MCE British Superbike Championship.

Assen played host to the first two rounds of the season’s showpiece finale format and Shakey found himself on the end of a DNF in race one, but he followed that up with an excellent race win in the second race of the day.

The Kent racer now has a twelve point lead over title rival Riyuichi Kiyonari and 56 over Josh Brookes, as the showdown heads to Silverstone with all to play for.

Byrne had to start race one from the fourth row having crashed out in the second round of qualifying on Saturday afternoon. He got off to his customary flyer and was in the lead after the first lap.

He would stay there up until the last few laps when Josh Waters a wet specialist got passed him and Kiyo was to make his move. With Shakey looking to work his way back through he crashed out just three laps from the end, leaving Kiyo to take twenty points out of his championship lead.

The second race of the weekend was entertaining from the off with Shakey once again starting down the order on the third row.

Yet for most of the race it was a battle between Kiyo and Byrne with Shakey sat right on the rear wheel of the Buildbase BMW man. He was looking for a way past and he was determined to find a way past and he had to be patient, then on the last lap he made his move and came out ahead of his title rival as they crossed the line.

Speaking after an eventful weekend, Byrne said: “We were in a very difficult situation in race one having missed out on the wet practice on Saturday and it was a nightmare but I’d worked my way up to third and felt reasonably secure only to crash out near the end.”

“It gave me more work to do in the second race but once I’d got on the back of Kiyo, my main concern was trying to decide when to make a move. The pace for the first half of the race wasn’t that strong but in the second half, Kiyo stepped it up and I knew it would go to the end.”

“I had terrific mid-corner and exit speed just before the chicane but knew if I passed him he’d come straight back so I decided to leave it until the very last lap so he wouldn’t have chance to respond so it was fantastic to pull it off and eke out a bit of gap in the points table.”

MCE British Superbike Championship Race One – 17 laps 1 Josh Waters (Suzuki) 2 Ryuichi Kiyonari (BMW) 3 Stuart Easton (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) 4 James Ellison (Kawasaki) 5 Christian Iddon (Bimota) 6 Dan Linfoot (Kawasaki) DNF Shane Byrne (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) MCE British Superbike Championship Race Two – 18 laps 1 Shane Byrne (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) 2 Ryuichi Kiyonari (BMW) 3 Tommy Bridewell (Yamaha) 4 Dan Linfoot (Kawasaki) 5 John Hopkins (Suzuki) 6 Stuart Easton (Rapid Solicitors Kawasaki) Championship Points (after ten rounds) 1 Byrne 587 points 2 Kiyonari 575 3 Brookes 536 4 Bridewell 531 5 Linfoot 524 6 Walker 505 7 Easton 176

Picture supplied by Jon Jessop Photography.