Conor Cummins maintained his strong run of top eight finishes for Team Blackhorse Yamaha in the Metzeler National Superstock 1000cc Championship when he took eighth place at Brands Hatch on Sunday. Competing in round 8 of the series, the Manxman was in the top ten throughout the weekend and he was rewarded with 8 more Championship points to maintain his ninth place overall in the title table.

After placing ninth in the solitary free practice session on Friday, Conor took two seconds off his time in that afternoon's opening qualifying session and a lap of 1m31.048s saw him jump up seventh place on the provisional grid, less than a tenth of a second adrift off sixth-placed Luke Quigley. Like many other riders, Conor was unable to improve his time during Saturday's second and final session, which was held in significantly higher temperatures but Howie Mainwaring and Sam Warren did manage it and they pushed Conor back to ninth, which meant he would start on the outside of the third row.


However, the outside of the third row meant he would have the ideal line into the first corner, Paddock Hill Bend, and Conor took full advantage jumping up to fifth as they swept round the daunting downhill corner. He was pushed back to sixth a lap later by Adam Jenkinson but on lap 5 the red flag was out and the race stopped, a crash involving Dan Stewart meaning a premature halt to proceedings. When the race did re-start it was cut from its original 18 laps down to 12.

Once again though, Conor made a great start and at the completion of the first 2.3-mile lap, he occupied sixth position. The front five riders proved to have slightly higher pace than Conor and he found himself embroiled in a superb five-man dice for sixth with positions changing on each and every lap. At the end of lap 8, two-thirds race distance, Conor was in eighth place with everything still to play for but the red flag came out once more as anothercrash saw the trackside safety barriers dislodged. With the safety of the riders paramount, the race was stopped and the result subsequently declared at 8 laps with Conor's 8 points moving him on to a Championship total of 49 points.

The next round of the Superstock series takes place at Cadwell Park on Bank Holiday Monday, August 31st but, prior to that, Conor's next meeting will see him go up against team boss Ian Lougher once more, as they compete at this week's Ulster Grand Prix.

Picture by Glynne Lewis