Wet Weather Heroics: Tarran Mackenzie’s Thrilling Win at Autodrom Most
Tarran Mackenzie’s 2023 World Supersport campaign turned the corner at Autodrom Most in the Czech Republic this weekend with a spectacular first win in race two on Sunday.
The Petronas MEI Racing Honda Team who have been struggling so far this season with the Honda CBR600RR bike took delivery of a new engine from Padgett Honda which improved things for Tarran “it accelerates a lot better” he said before the the start of race 1 on Saturday. Mackenzie started in 21st place on the seventh row of the grid and after chaos on the first corner of the race where lots of riders took took to the escape road including Tarran after others crashed in from of them, Tarran finished a credible 17th an improvement over recent results.
Race two on Sunday was a different story, Mackenzie in 20th position and on the 7th row of the grid started well and kept out of trouble, but after a few laps he went down the order whilst battling with others in an around 24th position. But on lap 7 it started to rain and it was getting more intense as the race went on. The Race Director opened the pit lane for riders to come in and change tyres to wet ones, This is a minimum 1 minute 12 second window, most of the front runners decided to pit and change tyres but Mackenzie gambled and stayed out on slicks, a brave move racing a motorcycle on a wet track with dry tyres but by lap 11 Tarran was in the lead with a huge gap to 2nd position, the next few laps saw the drying track come back to Tarran whilst everyone else including the championship leaders who were on wet tyres struggle and had to keep their tyres cool by finding wet patches on the track to cool them down.
The final laps saw Mackenzies rivals in second and third place narrowing the gap with Schroetter and Sofuoglu behind but Taz prevailed and won the race by 2.037 second with his team mate Adam Norrodin in a tremendous 5th overall.
A brave, controlled and strategically brilliant race which gave the Petronas MEI Honda team and its owner Midori Moriwaki a fantastic result.
