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Thruxton BSB: Smiths boss clarifies Johnson exclusion

4 Anjels by Smiths Racing’s David Johnson was excluded from today’s Pirelli National Superstock 1000 but Rebecca Smith, Smiths BMW’s team manager, insists it was simply an “unfortunate situation”.

Johnson’s BMW was reported as having no ECU seals and wasn’t as homologated in Superstock Technical Regulations, but Smith has confirmed this was all as a result of the Aussie using this bike in the Superstock TT earlier in the year.

“The BMW technicians did plug into the ECU when we were at the TT. We, like everyone else, were having issues with fuel and we weren’t making it to the end of the second lap for the refuel. They did some stuff and suggested that we put a HP4 power up kit on it, which we did,” said Smith, speaking to bikesportnews.com.

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“It worked brilliantly and we had a good finish in that stock race. When we returned to BSB, we asked them to put the bike back to how it was prior to the TT. This was done and the ECU sealed back up, and we haven’t touched it since Brands Hatch.

“But the edge of the seal is peeled up so [the BSB Technical team], therefore, saw that and plugged into it. They found that the launch control hadn’t been disengaged, which is of no advantage to Dave [Johnson]. We weren’t aware of it, BMW at some point were aware but forgot to do anything about it.

“I have had extended conversations with Stuart Higgs about the penalty. I’m happy to honour the rules and they have effectively been broken but with no advantage to us. It’s just an unfortunate situation and lessons have been learnt by everybody. I feel it’s unfair to label us cheats.

“I’m not aware of Dave’s last incident. All I know is that he wasn’t aware of the launch control being turned on and we weren’t aware either. Whilst BMW have been aware, it appears they’d forgotten or something. The word cheating has been thrown around too frequently and I don’t think, given the circumstances, people can actually label it as cheating.”

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