Last weekend saw the third round of the Metzeler National Superstock 1000 Championship held at Oulton Park. Trowbridge's Victor Cox was in the thick of the action on his J & L Motorcycles backed R1 1000cc Yamaha.
An encouraging Thruxton result saw Victor go from 25th on the grid to 11th in the race and pick up a set of Metzeler tyres for best performance of the race. Victor was confident at Oulton Park when qualifying in 16th place and hoped to improve on race day.
The race was run in dry but cloudy conditions with Victor lying in 15th place by the end of lap 1 looking smooth and in control. On lap 4 he was up to 13th place in front of muliple Isle of Man TT winner John McGuinness putting in a faster lap than McGuinness by 0.60 of a second.
By lap 10 of 15 Victor had made a further 3 places and dropped off the challenges of Gilbertson and McGuinness then got the better of Luke Quigly for eighth place. During this lap race leader Jon kirkham on his BMW was lapping in a time of 1 minute 39.46 seconds with Victor in eighth putting in consistant laps of around 1 minute 40 seconds.
Kirkham won the race with Victor achieving his best result so far this season in eighth place. Afterwards Victor said he knew this season was going to be hard due to the strong field of competitors which include former British Superbike Competitors and former 600cc Champions such as Steve Plater, Scott Smart, Karl Harris and John McGuinness.
He added he was happy with eighth but the last couple of meetings has shown what he is capable of and it's all down to the hard work of our small but determined team.
The next round of the championship is Round 4 - Cadwell Park 21-23 May
Adapted from the article and picture by Paul Korkus www.pkphotomedia.co.uk