By Brent Gladwin
August 10 2005

Team NVIDIA impressed the world as a wildcard entry to last weekend’s race at the Brands Hatch round of the World Superbike championship. The team and rider, Dennis Hobbs, were impeccably prepared and highly motivated entering the world championship scene.

The first objective of the team was to get into Superpole - the top sixteen places on the grid - which was achieved by out-qualifying world famous names such as Norick Abe, Pier-Francesco Chili, Ben Bostrom and Garry McCoy, to take a provisional fifteenth place on the grid.

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Superpole is a simple spectacle for the TV; each rider in the top sixteen is given one flying lap to settle the final grid. One lap make or break - you could be first and end up sixteenth if you get it all wrong, or of course the other way round if you get it all right. Dennis has never had to do this before but he put in a super-human effort in his one lap qualifying attempt, which, despite making a small mistake, propelled him up the field to take thirteenth on the grid, and third Yamaha, pushing behind him many factory bikes.

After the Superpole session, Hobbs commented; “I made a small mistake at Surtees - I just committed too early. But it wasn’t too bad for my first Superpole. I think if I hadn’t made that error I could have at the very least gone forward onto the third row.”

Dennis’ excellent riding did not go unnoticed by the world’s press, with numerous national newspapers and worldwide TV networks following his every move on track, gaining excellent coverage for the team’s sponsors. Hobbs was determined to go one better in the highly anticipated two 25-lap races of the day, knowing he would have a tough job on his hands with some big name riders behind him on the grid.

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As expected Dennis did not let the occasion overcome his nerves, and rode a faultless first race - despite strong competition in a race long battle for tenth place - to take thirteenth position over the line and three greatly deserved world championship points.

The second race was just as competitive, with Hobbs again making a superb start. However, with the temperature sky rocketing, the NVIDIA rider suffered an early race clash, pushing him back from tenth to 21st, and now the battle was on to try and get back to the points. Quickly pushing his way through to 18th and then the hard slog forward - with five laps left of the 25-lap race he hit the points, and set off to make up the 2.7-second gap on fourteenth placed world championship rider Sébastian Gimbert. These were the best laps we have seen from Dennis since he started with Team NVIDIA, making up the gap - he missed out on passing Gimbert by 1/10th of a second, but secured fifteenth place to take away another world championship point on his British Superbike R1.

Dennis now sits one place ahead of WSBK full timer and ex-MotoGP rider Garry McCoy in the world championship standings.

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Team Manager Brent Gladwin commented; “This weekend we showed the world what we could do. Dennis, as ever, gave everything the whole weekend. The whole team worked tirelessly, Derek and Mike put in super-human efforts and we have to thank the guys on the Öhlins service truck for fantastic suspension. The results were well deserved. Everyone who has anything to do with the team is quite rightly very happy right now! But as ever the wheels in the racing world never stop, and we are already preparing for the next round of the British championship at Silverstone on the 21st August. We hope to see you all there!”