Victor
Cox moved into 12th position in the Metzeler National Superstock
Championship when he finished 8th in the fifth round of the series at
Knockhill. For his team-mate Conor Cummins though, it was a meeting to
forget as two crashes over the weekend, including one in the race
itself, left the Manxman nursing a badly swollen knee.Free practice ended with Cox in the top 15 and, despite struggling a little with bike set-up he then improved his lap time by around two seconds in First Qualifying to finish the session in 16th place. Team manager Ian Lougher and his technicians worked hard to improve things for Victor before the second session the next day and it certainly paid dividends as, in similar wet conditions he further improved by almost another two seconds to qualify on the third row of the grid in tenth alongside Cummins who was enjoying his best qualification of the season in 11th.
The race got underway in dry conditions but was red flagged on the first lap when a group of riders went down at the first corner, with Cummins unfortunately being one of them. The re-start over a shortened 20 lap distance saw Cox settle into 7th place for the opening five laps behind the Kawasaki of Michael Robertson with Luke Quigley and Joe Burns in close proximity, on the sixth lap Victor got past Robertson, however Quigley had now got past both Kawasakis to keep Victor in 7th. On the next lap Quigley had opened up a bit of a gap on Victor who was busy fending off the challenge of Burns and Robertson. At the end of the eighth lap Cox had reduced the gap to Quigley and for the next few laps he was right with him, Robertson was now losing touch but Burns was very much still posing a threat. On the tenth lap, Burns got ahead of both Quigley and Cox and began to move clear on the twelfth lap, Victor meanwhile was experiencing brake fade which enabled Quigley to distance himself slightly from the Blackhorse Kawasaki teamster and by Lap 15 the gap between the two was 1.7 seconds.
But Cox wasn't finished and over the next two laps he hauled the BMW rider in and by the end of Lap 17 he was right back on Quigley's case with the gap between the two now just 0.39 seconds. Victor was now looking good for seventh but the introduction of red flags due to rain brought his spirited ride to an early conclusion with three laps of the race still to run. However, another eight points for Cox, who is starting to make steady progress up the championship standings.
Following
the Isle of Man TT, Cummins linked up with the Blackhorse Kawasaki team
once more for Knockhill, the vast amount of riding Conor had done at
the TT had certainly paid
dividends for his short circuit aspirations and he was immediately
running in the top 15. Riding smoothly in the wet conditions in
qualifying,
Conor was hopeful of scoring his first points of the season in the
24-lap race. However, it all went wrong on the first lap when he was the
innocent victim of the seven man pile up that also included John
McGuinness. Battered and bruised in the spill, Conor had to make a trip
to the medical centre for a check up and although nothing was broken, he
had to sit out the re-start.
"All the mileage at the TT really helped me so when I got to Knockhill, everything clicked straightaway. Obviously the conditions made it more of a level playing field as I'm still nowhere near fully fit but it was without doubt my best weekend on the short circuits so far. I felt really good on the bike and it was nice to be running inside the top 12 with the riders I'm usually running with. My luck ran out in the race though when Jason O'Halloran crashed and his bike collected me and about 5 other riders and it's fair to say I'm a bit sore from the crash as I got caught up with the bike and hit the deck fairly hard. The medics at the circuit looked after me really well and nothing's broken so I'll just rest up now before the next round. It was a very positive weekend though in terms of how I was performing so there's a lot to be encouraged by and I can now just press on at the next round and look to get the result I feel I'm now capable of."
Photos Courtesy: Simon Charity www.simonsracepics.co.uk