[visordown.com] - WSBK Donington Park UK Sykes hails dream come true with perfect wee

[Ninjette Newsbot]

TOM Sykes has called his seventh and eighth wins in a row at Donington Park 'a dream come true' as he produced the perfect home round with pole position and a double victory weekend.

The Kawasaki rider came into the race weekend as heavy favourite to continue his winning run at the Leicestershire circuit and duly delivered by topping every session expect for the Sunday morning warm-up.

After notching up a qualifying time under the lap record for pole position Sykes was forced to manage technical issues on his ZX-10R in both races but demonstrated his dominance at his home round with two emphatic wins.

His victories have equalled the all-time record of eight straight World Superbike wins at one track, which he now shares with Carl Fogarty who achieved the feat at Assen between 1993-1996.

“It is unbelievable. I'm 30 now and to win here for the last four years is an incredible dream come true and we'll try to go for two more next year!” Sykes said. “We had to fight for it and we had some restrictions after two laps but we kept working and kept plugging away. The bike wasn't perfect but we had to make it count and I'm delighted with the results.

“We made the bike faster but we developed an issue in race two and it took the edge off of us. But we will keep working at that. We've won three out of the last four races so I'm happy.”

After also equalling Fogarty's record of consecutive poles at Donington Park (four) on Saturday and the eight consecutive wins feat the records have continued to tumble.

Sykes has become the first rider to claim 10 consecutive podium results at the same venue since Colin Edwards at Monza between 1998-2002. Fogarty still holds the outright record with 15 at Assen between race two in 1992 and race two in 1999.

Moving on from his triumphs at his home event and on to the next round at Misano, Sykes is keen to maintain his momentum from winning three of the past four races and after jumping to second in the World Superbike championship he is aiming to eat into Rea's 56-point lead.

“The first half of the season has been steady, we've had some issues, but at the midpoint now we've made a little change and it looks like we are quite fast,” he said. “I'm really looking forward to Misano now as we were strong in Sepang, strong here, and we also won last year in Misano so it gives me extra motivation.”

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