Whakatane’s Damon Rees has continued to impress the British Superbike realm with another impressive display in the second round of the Superstock 1000 class in Snetterton.
Coming into the event tied for the championship lead, Rees secured a strong points-paying finish in tenth after relatively difficult weekend for the Astro JJR Racing pilot.
Qualifying on the third row of the grid for the weekend’s sole race, Rees was sitting comfortably in ninth at the end of the opening tour and directly behind ex-Moto3 champion Danny Kent.
However, as Kent sailed away from Rees who began to suffer from problems with his front-end, a dog fight surfaced over the last of the top-10 finishing positions.
The Kiwi would set an electric 1.50.363s lap time which resided at the top of the timesheets for the opening quarter of the race, but Rees eventually would lose out on ninth to secure a tenth-placed result.
The result places Rees third in the championship after three races, though it was far from a positive outing for fellow Kiwi and teammate Shane Richardson who pulled into the pitlane bearing a traction control sensor drama. It would later be determined that a piece of debris had triggered a sensor warning on Richardson’s dash and resulting in the bike engaging a safety limp mode.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for Richardson who looked to expiate a difficult qualifying session with a strong start, seeing him reel in Rees and the tussle for a top-10 finish before the sensor failure imposed his retirement.
Meanwhile, Rees’ result puts him 19 points adrift of championship leader and race winner at Snetterton Tom Neave.
“I definitely had a solid race, getting into a good rhythm in the opening laps – even posting the fastest lap-time momentarily with a 1.50.363,” said Rees.
“I wasn’t able to make a decent charge as I would have hoped, as I hadn’t gone as fast as I did in the race all weekend, therefore I was limited by our suspension set-up.
“I’m really happy with my continuous progression this weekend, and I bagged some valuable points.”
The Kiwi duo will now set their sights on the third round of the British Superstock 1000 Championship which will be staged around the shorter Silverstone National layout on September 5-6.
