Strong finish leaves Michael Rutter feeling better

Bridgnorth’s Michael Rutter admitted he was not happy to finish with a highest place of ninth on Sunday during the three National Superstock 1000 races but was pleased with the progress made towards the end of the meeting.

And there were some stunning results on the other side of the Bathams Racing garage, with his superstock team-mate Taylor Mackenzie securing three second-placed finishes while Alveley’s teenager star Harris Beech went on to claim a 16th and a superb 12th in the British Junior Supersport series.

Rutter, who had also finished 16th and 14th in the opening two races on Saturday, said he had made a significant breakthrough with the set-up of his bike on Sunday, improving his pace enough to post lap times comparable to riders in the top five.

Beech, 15, had also made a big improvement in the set-up of his bike to come from 24th on the grid to finish 16th position in race one, before going to get claim a brilliant 12th in race two, improving his lap times by over a second per lap as well as finishing as the highest place rider on a Yamaha YZF-R3 in a class still dominated by Kawasakis.

Bathams Racing team boss Rutter said: “Obviously I’m still not happy with finishing in ninth position but I am over the moon with the set-up changes we made to my bike overnight. I really must thanks the guys in the garage for working so hard to go through the whole bike for me.

“I felt for the first time that I had a bike which I could race with.

“The lap times were there to be higher up the finishing order, but starting back on row six was always going to be a tall order to get into the top five.”

Newport’s Harry Rowlings, 18, said his BSB debut, in the National Supersport 600 class, had been challenging after finishing 15th in his only race of weekend.

He said: “Back from a challenging round one at Silverstone. We struggled all weekend with set-up due to never having been on the track before. We were on the back foot from the start.

“No matter what we tried we couldn’t solve the problem we had. Thank you to Steve Jordan Motorcycles and K-Tech Suspension for all their efforts to try to sort it out.

“We found a bit of a step forward in warm-up but I made a mistake, hit a bump and went down.

“A massive thank you to the whole team who got the bike ready again for the race in the small time frame we had. Can’t thank you all enough.

“I got a bit caught up in the incident on the start in the first race but managed to stay on so I hope all involved are OK!

“In the restart I didn’t get the best first laps and lost a few places but managed to plug away and finish 15th and get my first point in Superstock, which I was happy with considering the set-up was still off.

“Can’t wait to get to Oulton Park where we have a set-up and can build on this positive start.

“Thank you to all my sponsors who got me here and continue to support me – Bernard Elliott Racing, Steve Jordan Motorcycles, Sublime Designs, Factory Agencies, XITE Energy, Brown and Geeson, FUCHS Lubricants UK plc, HEL Performance, HCI Systems Limited, MPHClothing.co.uk and Road-Race-Performance Shropshire LTD.”