TT star Conor Cummins battles his way to British championship points finish
Tuesday 13 September 2011
TT
Isle of Man TT star Conor Cummins was back in the points after a determined ride at Donington on Sunday.
The Manxman took 14th place, and 2 points, at round 10 of the National Superstock 1000cc Championship.
With another different circuit to tackle on the new Blackhorse Kawasaki ZX-10R, Cummins steadily improved his pace over the two days of practice and qualifying around the 2.5-mile Grand Prix circuit and after placing 26th in the opening qualifying session on Friday, he was able to reduce his time during the second and final session the next day.
With a time of 1m35.175s he took almost a second off his time, moving up to 23rd on the grid.
The 15-lap race finally got under way at 5.35pm, and a good opening lap from Cummins saw him up to 21st.
The safety car was soon out due to an incident and when it pulled in at the end of lap 4, Cummins piled pressure on the riders ahead. On lap 7 he jumped up to 19th and, 2 laps later, 17th when Leon Hunt and Joe Burns disappeared from the action. In a race of high attrition, the safety car was again deployed from laps 10-12 and that meant it was a 3-lap dash to the flag for the remainder of the 40-strong grid.
With further incidents taking place, including second and third placed riders Howie Mainwaring and Adam Jenkinson crashing out, Cummins was promoted to 14th, where he finished, less than 3 seconds outside the top 10.
Cummins said:
“It started off as a really tough weekend, but I really enjoyed the race and to come away with more points is really satisfying.”
“I really struggled to get the bike set up during practice and the suspension was causing me a number of issues, being too soft on the front and too hard on the rear. I was running wide going into the corners and struggling for grip on the exits so it was hard on both counts, but we made improvements all the time and after final qualifying we were a lot closer to where we wanted to be.”
“It was quite windy out there, but the bike was working well and I wanted to get points on the board again so I'm glad that I've been able to achieve that once more.”
“Like I say, we were chasing our tails a bit during practice and qualifying, but we improved the bike and made progress all the time so I'm really chuffed to have scored points again, especially as it was a really hectic race with a lot of the boys being all over the shop!”
“It's been a constructive weekend, one that's had a good, happy ending and that means I can head to the next round at Silverstone with that added bit of confidence.”