Round 6 - British Superstock 1000 Championship - Donington Park

Round 6 of the British Superstock 1000 Championship was held at Donington Park over the weekend, as a support class to the World Superbikes. It was a good opportunity to race as a support class to the world championship, and see a different crowd of faces there, along with many of the same fans that follow the British Championship around.

After crashing in the previous 2 weekends race meetings, I needed to approach this weekend with a slightly different mind set. We needed a consistent weekend, to build back the confidence. My body, physically, has taken a bit of a beating the last few weeks from the crashes, so it was necessary for us to have a strong weekend to bring me and the bike home in one piece. The track time was limited this weekend, due to us being at the World Superbike meeting, which meant we only had 1 practice on Friday, 1 qualifying Saturday and a 14 lap race on Sunday.

In practice on Friday, it had been a red hot day all day, and the track temperature was high when we went out. This causes the tires to feel a little greasy. We made a few set up changes throughout the session, and I finished Fridays practice in 9th place. We had a good think about the changes we wanted to improve on going in to qualifying. We made some positive changes going in to qualifying, but they didn't seem to make as big a difference as we had hoped. I improved my lap time, and ended qualifying in 12th position for the race on Sunday.

Our race on Sunday was at 5pm, so we had to wait around all day for it, buzzing with anticipation all day to go out and race! We had some great guests through my major sponsor AJN Steelstock attend for both the Saturday and Sunday, so it was great to be able to spend some time with them, and show them the Aprilia RSV4 I'm fortunate enough to race. I got away reasonably well in the race on Sunday afternoon, but couldn't quite match the pace to the riders in front of me. I ended up in a race long battle with Tyco BMW's Andy Reid, and in the closing stages, another 3 riders joined the back of us. I managed to hold them all off and come away at the front of that battle, crossing the line in 10th place. I am happy with this result, as we had a weekend that went smoothly from start to finish, steadily improving in each session, and having a strong race. I know we can do better than this in the races moving forward, but I need to just keep improving my riding on the Aprilia and the results will come.

Our next race is at Snetterton, in 2 weeks time. I'm really looking forward to getting back on the IN Competition Aprilia RSV4 there and enjoying my riding and working hard to do my team, sponsors and family proud! Thank you to everyone in my team for all their hard work, my Main Sponsor AJN Steeltsock and everyone else involved.

Cheers,

Levi Day