Best results all season for motorcycle racer Damon Smith

In the test day on Friday, he spent the day getting up to speed and trying some different settings on the bike and some different lines at certain sections of track.

Smith managed to end the day just less than 0.5 seconds off his personal best lap time from last years races which was very encouraging.

Saturday morning dawned dry and bright ready for the manic 12 minute qualifying session with approximately 40 other riders all trying to post a quick lap time within the Stock 1000 and Powerbike classes but Smith ended the session in 7th position in class on the grid.

So he lined up for race one and after making some little changes, the tyres were sliding with the hot track temp and a red flag stopped the race on the final lap so he had to settle in 5th place.

Despite overnight showers the weather was warm and dry ready for Race 2.

After a fairly good start fatigue was starting to set in and for the first time ever Smith suffered from 'Arm Pump' which is common problem suffered by some racers due to upper body forces.

He eased off in the last couple of laps but was unaware that another rival was closing the gap fast and he managed to slip by on the run to the chequered flag with only 0.6 seconds between the two.

For race 3, Smith was determined to not let the Arm Pump interfere again and managed to maintain 5th place and stayed on the tail of the 4th placed rider the whole way.

Afterwards, Smith said: "Despite my slight disappointment, 3x 5th places are my best results so far this year which maintained my 6th overall in the championship out of 17 overall competitors and I'm getting closer to another podium finish this year.

"We are also going in the right direction with some changes to front suspension hopefully planned for the bike before the next round at Pembrey in South Wales in 2 weeks time."