Peter Hickman

Despite a crash in race two of three, Louth Superbike rider Peter Hickman scored a total of six championship points in his races at Snetterton over the weekend to bring his total haul to 26 which places him 18th in the overall rider standings.



The weekend began with free practice and qualifying where once again Hicky made it through to the second stage of the Roll for Poll qualifying session and was placed 17th on the grid for the start of Sunday’s opening race.



Prior to that the Superbikes took to the grid in the re-run of the abandoned race from Knockhill where Hicky was placed at the back of the grid after a mechanical problem forced him out of the original race.



It was a tall order for the Lincolnshire ace to come through from last position but he was determined to give it a go and see where he ended up.



But the race was red flagged within a couple of laps when a heavy rain shower affected the track surface. At the restart Hicky came through from 26th place to 19th on the opening lap and he made steady progress through to complete the 18 laps in 15th position to pick up one championship point.



“That’s not a bad result considering we started from the back of the grid,” said Hicky. “I got away to a good start and then got my head down and kept picking people off until I passed Steve Brogan for 15th place. I had a bit of a gap to Andrew Pitt on the factory Yamaha but although I managed to catch him up with a couple of laps to go, I just couldn’t quite get past him.”



The second encounter saw Hicky make a start from row five and he was running well in 18th place when another rider cut him up, causing him to run wide across the grass. He rejoined the race in last position – 28th – and had to ride like the wind to make up ground on the back markers. One lap later he was up to 24th and then picked off the opposition until he reached 15th place. But he made a mistake on lap 16 and high sided out of the race at the Bomb Hole his race over.



Hicky started the final race from a fourth row grid position and circulated in 14th place during the first half of the 22-lap race before moving up into 10th on lap 14. The safety car was deployed for two laps and the race then extended to 24 laps to compensate. Once the car left the track the race was back on but Hicky was demoted down the order to 11th where he remained to the chequered flag.



The race went well for me overall,” said Hicky. “I went out on the sighting lap and discovered the Ultimate Racing Yamaha R1 had a misfire which was due to the crash in the previous race and throughout the race I could only use 12 ½ thousand revs so the bike was not as fast as it should have been. But even so I had a good race, I kept my head down although unfortunately I was losing the pack at the front but had a good gap behind so was ok. But then the safety car came out and that allowed the group behind to catch up and eventually I got passed by Kagayama down the back straight and that was that. But I managed to fend off Dan Linfoot on the factory Yamaha and finish the race ahead of him which is good. We were also very, very close to the top 10 which is what we are aiming for.”



The next round is at Brands Hatch on August 8 when Hicky will once again contest three races and aim his sights at the elusive top 10 finish he has been hoping for.