British Superbike Championship leader Brad Ray has been reflecting on a round that did not start off well, but ended with a double podium.

Ray struggled on Friday and Saturday as he and the team worked out why he couldn’t quite get the feeling the same as he has been used to all season from his Yamaha R1. With a new swing arm on, Ray put the bike on the front row for race one but that is about as good as it got.

The racer from Lydd just couldn’t get into a good rhythm in race one and was swallowed up by the pack having got the hole shot off the line and crossed the line in eighth place.

It was a damaging race, as he saw Kyle Ryde reduce his lead to 24 points. Then he found something in Sunday warm up, and going back to his original swing arm. When the lights went out we saw Ray back on form, he roared through from 12th on the grid and was soon up dicing for the podium places, picking up a third place finish in the sprint race. A red flag did mean that it was a short sprint for the final part of the race of eight laps.

Whilst his lead was reduced by a further two points it did see Ray back on form and back on the front row for race three.

Once again Ray got the hole shot, and he lead for most of the race. Dicing with Christian Iddon, Kyle Ryde and Danny Kent. Eventually he crossed the line in second place, having made a move into the last corner on Kent, but he couldn’t get the bike stopped.

With Ryde finishing off the podium, it means that Ray takes a 26 point lead to Cadwell Park for the August bank holiday round.

Speaking after the weekend, Ray said: ” I’m super happy with how Sunday went here at Thruxton. On Friday and Saturday, we were scratching our heads a lot and struggling to understand why we weren’t as competitive as we anticipated.

“We made a radical change for warm up and went in the right direction. I felt better immediately, and achieving two podiums today is the icing on the cake for the work the team have done.

“To end the weekend in a strong way means a lot, I’m looking forward to getting back to Cadwell Park. One week off and we go again!”

Image courtesy of Colin Port Images – www.colinportimages.co.uk