On the podium at last (2nd) and another new lap record in the Regal Sports Production class. A great end to the British Championship race weekend after a mixed couple of days weather.

Here's the low-down in detail:

I got back from a very relaxing weeks holiday in Fuertaventura late Wednesday night, with a tan and a big "hit list" of things to do before heading to Knockhill. Luckily I had prepared the bike after the previous successful meeting at Knockhill on the 16th June, so it was mostly collecting bits and pieces, buying food, and filling the van with fuel and water. I eventually left Thursday afternoon about 2pm, worried that I wouldn't get a good space in the paddock two days before the qualifying, such is the level of professionalism in some aspects of the British Championship. I needn't have worried as the BSB officials were parking everyone up, and though I couldn't get near the Alvins.com garage, I did get a good space near a 240v power source, so that saved me (and everyone else) running bloody noisy portable generators all weekend.

I got help to set up the awning in the sun... Yes, sun at Knockhill! And took the opportunity to wash the awning as it had been put away wet every time since last August and was beginning to get pretty dirty. Hand washing a 5.5mx3.5mx2m awning inside and out kept me in training anyway.

The evening was bright and warm, and there was a good buzz as the paddock filled with the visiting English teams, all amazed how far it was north of Eng-Er-Lund, and how it was still light at midnight. Forgetting that the Scots riders make that journey to and from EVERY British Championship meeting.

This was a day of unofficial practice, organised by Knockhill Circuit, who allow me to practice there for free, for which I'm very grateful. This meant that I'd have two practice sessions for the British Championship Superstock race, and two more for the Regal (Scottish) series if I wanted, which was only open to riders who had competed in earlier rounds, barring the visiting riders from taking places (and prize money) from the regulars. My plan was to get out with the British Championship riders as soon as possible and see where they were faster, as they would surely be, so that I could use the other sessions to make changes and try to improve my own lap times. I was joined by Ian Willcox to help me for the day as neither regular "spannermen" Neil Aldridge or Dave Nicholson could get the day off work.

My plan worked perfectly as during the first session I followed both David Jefferies and hot shot Chris Burns for about half a lap each in the perfect dry conditions. It was obvious that they were making time on me out of every corner, getting on the gas much harder, and seemingly having better acceleration too. I spent the rest of the morning changing my gearing to give me better drive out of the turns, and speaking to my long time friends at Dunlop who offered me a choice of tyres equivalent to anything that the other teams would get. The problem there is that a pair of tyres is still over £150, so it would be an expensive "test" to see which was best. I decided to run with the same ones I had and fit fresh ones of a compound that the fast riders preferred for Saturday's official qualifying.

I went out in the afternoon British Championship session and easily did a lap of 53.5s on the new set up, but made some small changes to the rear damping to compensate for the changed wheelbase (new chain, different gearing). I was well pleased with this, I was 9th in the British series, well up among the regulars, and ahead of my usual rivals in the Scottish Regal series. My other priority was to find new brake pads to scrub in, in case the longer races increased pad wear during the weekend. I didn't go out in the Regal practices as I didn't have anything else to test.

We got some new slightly softer Dunlop 208's fitted for Saturday's qualifying, and prepared the bike for scrutineering on Saturday morning. Neil and Dave Nicholson joined me after they had finished work, Dave bringing Neil's Aprilia paddock bike for us to use over the weekend. At about 10pm, I was told by one of the other Scottish competitors that I would have to have the standard screen and air intake tubes fitted to pass scrutineering for the British Championship race, so I sped home in Neil's car to collect the stuff from my garage and returned to fit it, finally finishing after 1am. We were ready, or so I thought.

We went for scrutineering, and were rejected because we didn't have any "Explosafe" foam in the tank, which is required if you read the small print of the British rules, but not normally in Scotland. Because most of the Scots were rejected for the same reason, any bits that teams had spare in the paddock were quickly snapped up. We eventually got some as a favour from one of the big Superbike teams, but too late for me to go out in the first qualifying. Oh, and I forgot to say, it was pouring rain... again.

I wasn't too bothered as I reckoned it could not be any worse for the afternoon session, and indeed it was no worse, but no better either. I went out on new Dunlop wets, but just couldn't really get into it. No excuses, I just didn't like the tricky conditions, and could only manage about 19th when I stopped. Not really good enough, but I still had to qualify for the Regal series less than an hour later so I was reluctant to risk another stupid crash in the wet just to get a few places further up the grid.

In the event, I got my finger out in the Regal qualifying, and had gone 4th fastest with a time 1.2s quicker than I could manage earlier, when the session was stopped due to a crash which resulted in oil being spilt on the track. There was a long delay, about 30 minutes, during which I was interviewed about last years endurance racing by commentator Rob Johnson, who knew his stuff. When the session restarted for the remaining 9 minutes, the track was so wet where they had pressure washed the oil off it, that it was difficult to go as fast as earlier even though the rest of the track was more dry. I virtually matched my earlier time despite the traffic, but unfortunately one rider did improve to push me down one place to 5th, but more importantly back to the second row of the grid. I was gutted.

Neil, Dave and I had been joined at lunchtime by a group of friends comprising my Rock Oil sponsor Dave Wellington, who had flown up from London and been picked up by Ray and Bonita Johnston who had travelled up by car from Norfolk with Brian Goodall. Their common link is that they were all involved in a World Championship Endurance team that I rode for in the late 80's.

Add Ian Willcox and partner Tricia, and top Ducati (my former) technician Chris Anderson and his photographer brother Pete, and we had a really sociable evening despite the cold and rain showers, and Neil slicing his finger open on one of the brake discs.

I could hear the rain during the night - amazing how you do that as a rider, so I was not surprised to see it was totally wet when we got up. I decided that I wouldn't go out in the morning warm-up for the British Championship race, and indeed further rain showers led to many fallers before the racing had even started. Having qualified so well for the Regal series which is my main focus this year, but so far back for the British race, I decided after discussing it that I would not ride in the British race at 12 mid-day unless it was dry as I didn't want to risk a crash and not making it for the Regal round at 5pm. My mind was made up even more when fellow YPE and Alvins.com sponsored rider Torquil Paterson totally wrecked his 600 Suzuki in a tumble in their morning race.

I think my decision was the correct one, as the British Championship Superstock race was started in damp conditions and so many riders fell off that they ended up stopping it and taking half an hour to clear the debris, clean the spilt oil, and allowing the track to dry more as it had stopped raining. Championship leader Chris Burns was one of the fallers, but he was allowed to take the restart a lap down, and went on to set a new class lap record.

We had a long, long wait until our race, watching some fantastic battles in the Superbike races between Steve Hislop and Michael Rutter, which ended with them both crashing on the last corner of the last lap of the second leg.

We eventually lined up on the grid for our Regal Production race at 5pm, and it looked like it would stay dry, which was important for me. I was confident I could do well in those conditions, but both Sandy Christie (on pole) and I knew we had to get clear of the rest and try to make a break from each other. I got a great start, and passed one of the front row guys before the first corner, but in the usual way there was a lot of barging and elbowing as riders behind pushed through, and I was 6th as we went down Duffus Dip. I passed two riders before McIntyres, the next right hander, then two corners later I went third into Clarks as Sandy Christie took the lead, and I took the opportunity to go second on the way out of Clarks and round to the hairpin. I braked as late as I dared for the hairpin, the final corner of the lap, but Bob Grant dived up the inside going too fast, pushing us both wide and allowing Norman McLeod back through aswell. I repassed Bob Grant on lap two, then Norman McLeod on lap three, but Sandy had escaped, pulling out two seconds by the time we crossed the line to start lap four. As hard as I chased him, he upped the pace, so that despite breaking my lap record twice, I only pulled a few tenths back. The gap stayed at around two seconds until we caught back markers. I was too cautious with the first one I caught at the chicane and lost a bit of time. Fired up by that, I was ruthless cutting through the next group and made time back on Sandy.

The chase was in vain, as the race was stopped as we started lap 14 of 15 when Magnus Houston crashed for his third time of the weekend, luckily without serious injury. The result stood with Sandy Christie winning by 3.9s from me, with 2001 Champion Mark Wright a further 4s back in third. The big bonus for me was setting a new lap record at 52.8s, taking 0.5s off the mark I set at the last meeting, and just 0.2s slower than British Championship race winner John Crockford. And I can still see where I can improve on that. It's just not easy to actually make yourself do it. You can see the sort of riding that's needed to achieve those times in the attached picture (taken by Archie Love - thanks). It's a confidence thing... confidence in the tyres, confidence in your own ability, and getting a feel for the limits of grip as you wind on the power from that angle of lean.

This result leaves me 4th in the championship, with 4 races remaining. I'm about 30 points behind leader Sandy, with 25 points available for a win in each race, so it is still possible for me to win if Sandy has a poor result or non-finish.

The three of us were given our awards on the podium, but all kept our champagne corked, and in my case we shared it out back at the van before packing everything up. It was good to get a result at such a big meeting, with an attendance of about 20,000 on the day, and I'd like to thank the individuals that helped me both on the day and in the run-up to the event, as well as all my sponsors: Itronix, Alvins.com, Rock Oil, Transco, ETI Racing, Neil Williams Haulage, YPE (Young's Performance Engineering), Dunlop, and Knockhill Circuit.

The next scheduled race is at Knockhill, but not until the end of August. However, I'm looking for a race meeting to do in England, perhaps at Snetterton (Norfolk) or Thruxton (Hants) in early August, I'll let you all know. In the meantime, I'll be out at the Alvins.com track night this Friday evening doing demo laps and instructing, and again at Knockhill's own track day on the 28th July.