For the second meeting in a row, Manxman Gavin Hunt put in a superb ride in the Pirelli National Superstock 1000cc Championship, with the Nei Motorsport Kawasaki rider taking an excellent seventh in the sixth round at Thruxton on Sunday.
 
The Douglas rider was on the pace throughout with his weekend starting in positive fashion when he placed 13th in the opening qualifying session on Friday. He went quicker still on Saturday afternoon, improving by four-tenths of a second to 1m18.196s, just half a second from sixth place and although he slipped back a place to 14th, this later became 13th once more as eighth placed Dominic Usher was disqualified due to a technical infringement.
 
It all meant Gavin started from the outside of the fifth row for the 16-lap race and, after placing eighth in morning warm-up, hopes were high of another strong result. Indeed, a great start saw the 27-year old immediately jump up the order to 11th and by the second lap he was up into the top ten, his lap of 1m17.249s almost a second quicker than what he’d gone in qualifying!
 
For the remainder of the race, Gavin was in contention for seventh place and as the race wore on, he was lapping consistently quicker than the riders in front of him and on the 14th and 15th laps he overhauled Josh Day and Michael Robertson respectively. He duly crossed the line in a brilliant seventh place, his second successive finish inside the top seven with the nine points catapulting him up the Championship table to 12th and on the edge of the top ten.
 
Gavin Hunt: “I’m really pleased with today’s result and it’s nice to put two strong performances back-to-back. Consistency is crucial in this class and that’s two successive finishes in the top seven so I’m heading in the right direction. I made a bit of a mistake with the set up of the bike in the second qualifying session and didn’t go as quick as I would have liked but morning warm-up went well and with the settings changed for the race, I was able to show what I could do.”
 
“I got a good start and just chipped away throughout the race. The riders in front kept coming back to me and I was taking a few tenths out of them each lap, so I picked them off as and when I could. The bike was working really well and I felt strong at the end and that helped me overtake everyone in the group I was battling with. I feel like my season’s really up and running now and we’re running where I feel we should be so thanks to everyone in the team for all their hard work and effort, it’s nice to repay everyone with another strong result.”
 
The next round gets underway in just a few days time with Oulton Park, Cheshire hosting the seventh round on August 8-10. 
 
Pirelli National Superstock 1000cc Championship – 16 laps
1 Lee Jackson (BMW)
2 Danny Buchan (Kawasaki)
3 Jason O’Halloran (Honda)
4 Filip Backlund (Kawasaki)
5 Joe Burns (Kawasaki)
6 Adam Jenkinson (Kawasaki)
7 Gavin Hunt (Nei Motorsport Kawasaki)
 
Championship Points (after six rounds)
1 Buchan 140pts
2 O’Halloran 102
3 Jackson 91
4 Backlund 72
5 Jenkinson 43
6 Johnson 42
12 Hunt 22

Picture courtesy of Glynne Lewis.