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Superpole brought out the best in Colin Edwards and his VTR1000 Honda, as he cut more than a second off his best practice time for the session. This was the fastest time of the weekend and gives Edward\'s his 5th pole for the season. With rain threatening Edwards set his time on the first lap. It was a correct choice as the rain came shortly after.
The rules of wet Superpole is that the top 16 riders have a maximum of 50 minutes in which to ride a maximum of 12 laps, with the best time counting to the grid positions.
Edward\'s said after the session. \"I\'ve come here refreshed after a good break, eased into the weekend\'s action and I\'m ready to win tomorrow, It\'s the first time here with the VTR machine and I\'ve no complaints. I like the wet Superpole format and it definitely rewarded me today. I got the lap in early in the session and kept an eye on the TV monitor for the next 20 minutes!\"
Bayliss on the Infostrada Ducati also improved by more than a second to take second place on the grid. A fully healed Chilli took third place and Haga filled out the front row of the grid.
Kiwi Slight is just over a second behind on the inside of row two, right behind his teammate. This is Slight\'s best qualifying effort of the year.
Slight as usual was in a confident mood and believes he can get his first a podium finish since his return to racing. He was quoted as saying \"Despite the weather conditions we\'ve managed to get through a lot of work here so I\'m not too disappointed and feel pretty good going into tomorrow\'s races. I like the Assen track and I¹m out for a good start and see what I can make of it in both races.\"
Borja took fifth place well ahead of Ben Bostrom in 14th place. This after Bostrom struck problems during Superpole.
Bostrom commented \"I was on a fast flying Superpole lap, was up at the first split, when the bike just quit and I had to park it at the side of the track. When it was returned to the box, it started up immediately after we re-set the electrics. I\'ve moved down a row as a result and it will be tough to get past the pack in front of me at the grid.\"
Corser,who had good times in practice was in ninth place had this to say \"We were a bit unlucky with the rain, so I have to start from the third row. It\'s not such a big problem here because turn 1 is pretty open abd as long as I get good starts, like I\'ve been getting all season, then I can be in the leading group on the first laps. We\'ve still got some setup work to do on the machine to improve the balance and the gearing, so we\'ll have to look at the data logging computer to see how we can go about that in the warm up tomorrow. I feel good about the race because I like this circuit\".
The full grid
My two bobs worth; This is going to be hard to predict. All Kiwi\'s will be pleased to see Slight a bit higher on the grid and hope he can indeed get a podium finish. My predictions are not usually right but - here goes - The first three in any order Corser, Bayliss and Haga with Edwards and Slight to upset. Let\'s hope for good racing with no crashes. Oh yeah, I am still picking Bostrom to finish ahead of Borja
