Dogged racer Luke Hopkins twice finished inside the top 20 during the National Superstock 1000 outing at Oulton Park.

It proved to be a bruising weekend for the Sittingbourne rider.

His qualifying lap time of 1:39.188 on Saturday morning saw him clinch 18th spot, a two second improvement on his best lap time from the first free practice session.

Thirty-two 1000cc machines packed onto the Oulton Park grid for the first of two races. He was muscled down from 18th to 21st after a rider collided with him on the second lap. The collision damaged his fairing and twisted his radiator.

He was able to continue and was in a 12-rider group battling for a points scoring position. On the narrow and busy circuit, surrounded by competitive riders it proved difficult to overtake. Despite another ill-considered move from the same rider later in the race, Hopkins recovered three positions to cross the line 18th at the flag. He finished the same position in race two.

He said: “It was an interesting weekend. In race one I was on the receiving end of some very hard racing from one rider in particular but we battled on.

“As I have said previously, if I could finish in the top 25 in the races in my first season in this championship I would be happy and here we finished inside the top 20 again. So I am more than happy with our weekend’s work.”

He added: “A big thank you to my team Hollins Strategic Land and all my sponsors including HM Quickshifter and Scuff 2 New.”

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