Tonight sees the fifth instalment of I, Superbiker, the story of the 2014 MCE British Superbike Championship, go on general release in cinemas and, if you can find a babysitter at such notice, you ought to toddle along to the nearest picture house.
Film-maker Mark Sloper has returned more to the roots of documentary making with this cut of the action, focusing more on the track action and less on what happens in the background. However, some focus on the stories of the championship, it is another good film from the London man.
James Ellison’s fight back from horrific injury is a plot-arc that comes right through the piece. His broken leg at the second Brands Hatch round, the recovery, the hyperbaric chamber and then the almost Rocky-like podiums towards the end of the season after doctors told him he wouldn’t be walking without crutches for three months.
It takes a special kind of dedication to put your body through that sort of injury - for Ellison a second time as he broke the same femur at Thruxton in 2010 - and rehabilitation.
Sitting in a pressurised steel tube, originally designed to help divers recover from The Bends, for hours on end just to get back to work as fast as possible. Not many employees are that keen to be back at the coal face.
It’s heartening to see someone like Ellison, who has been racing since before he was born, still putting that sort of work into his work. The will to win has clearly not diminished even after two potentially career-ending crashes.
Sloper captures Ellison’s ethic perfectly, with a dash of James’ home video, and slots it nicely into the rest of the championship story which panned out as the race to be the first rider to win four BSB titles. As it turned out, the race ended on qualfifying day when Kiyonari broke his collar bone and Byrne was handed the big trophy again.
Some nice asides include the juxtaposition of Chris Walker and Dan Linfoot. The elder statesman and young buck riding the same machinery in similarly-funded teams in order to try and outdo each other.
Throw into that the borderline hatred between Josh Brookes and Byrne, and you have a little bit of soap opera. Whether Brookes planned his ‘voodoo’ speech just to get under the skin of Byrne or if it was off the cuff is something you will have to work out for yourselves.
