Beech continues promising start

ON THE LIMIT . . . Ashley Beech secured more points in the Bank Holiday meet at Brands Hatch

ASHLEY Beech continued his bright start to the new National Superstock 1000 Championship season with two points-scoring finishes at Brands Hatch.

The Moorside ace, who picked up points in the opening round at Donington despite suffering from tyre problems, improved his lap times in each of the two practice sessions at the Kent circuit.

Beech made good progress in qualifying, and again improved his lap time to finish ninth quickest.

The National Superstock organisers have added an additional race this season, the first consisting of 38 laps - a race distance of 50 miles - of the 1.2 mile Indy circuit. With each lap taking less than 50 seconds to complete, fans were treated to some fast and furious racing.

With former British Superbike stars, Isle of Man TT winners and international aces from Australia, the USA and Europe all fighting for podium finishes, it was no surprise that just half a second separated the top 15 riders, while there was little more than a second between the leading 30.

Beech got off the line well but, with a lot of bumping and barging into the first few corners, he had dropped two places at the end of the first lap.

RHYTHM

However, once he had settled into a rhythm, he moved back up to ninth place, where he finished after the red flag brought an early end to the race on lap 28 due to rain.

Because over two-thirds of the distance had been completed, a result was declared and Beech was accredited with ninth spot and with it seven valuable points.

The grid positions for the feature race 24 hours later were determined by the lap times in the Sunday event, which meant Beech started from 11th place.

The start was frantic as more than 40 bikes entered the first corner at Paddock Hill and then hurtled down a dip before climbing up to the slowest corner on the track at Druids, one of the few passing points on the circuit.

Beech was 12th place after lap one, but battled back over the 24-lap distance to eventually finish a noteworthy ninth and accrue more Championship points.

"The bike is pretty close to how I need it, but we are still missing that extra 10th of a second," said Beech.

"My race pace is good and my lap times are consistent, but with a tiny bit more I can get on the front row of the grid and from there I'm confident I could battle for the win."

The next round is at Oulton Park, Cheshire, on May 1.