THE World Superbike Championship round at Donington Park last weekend included rounds of the various national championships and a number of local riders were in action in front of a large bank holiday crowd in glorious conditions.

Leading the way with a superb top four placing in the Pirelli National Superstock 600 Championship was Saltburn rider Davey Todd, who continued his impressive start to the 2016 season on his Morello Kawasaki.

The weekend got off to a good start when he posted the third-fastest time in Friday’s free practice session, just three tenths of a second behind the fastest rider, but Saturday’s qualifying session was a lot tougher.

Todd’s best time placed him 10th overall and on the fourth row of the grid, although he was still only half a second adrift of pole position and confident of a good result in Sunday’s 14-lap race.

The 21-year old slipped back a place on the opening lap and he remained in 11th until the sixth lap, when he moved up inside the top 10. He was up to sixth three laps later and moved into fourth when two riders in front crashed out on the penultimate lap. He consolidated fourth on the final lap to claim 13 valuable points and maintain second place overall in the table.

In the Pirelli National Superstock 1000 race, Burnopfield’s Chrissy Rouse finished 10th. The Durham youngster missed the previous round at Brands Hatch due to university exams, but bounced back in style to score more points on the CECS/Mission Racing BMW to hold 14th place in the title race going into the next round at Knockhill later this month.

Prudhoe racer Barry Teasdale took his Greenchem/BHR BMW to 18th place in the same race, while Bishop Auckland’s Barry Burrell made a comeback on his Morello Kawasaki to finish 20th at the end of the 16-lap race.

In the Ducati TriOptions Cup, Middlesbrough rider Rik Rooney claimed 22nd place on Sunday after retiring his Highsparks Motorsport 899 Panigale on Saturday.

EXELBY kart racer Megan Stephenson was in action at Fulbeck, in Lincolnshire, in the third NKF championship race and was brimful of confidence after two good days of practice and testing.

The race weekend was a busy one as all the Super 1 drivers had entered to get testing in before racing in a few weeks, meaning the competition was hot. Despite this, the 12-year-old was determined to record some good results.

Starting the first race from fifth position, Megan got a great start to hold her position in the early stages. But an ambitious move by a rival while trying an optimistic pass ended in contact and spun Megan into the tyre wall. Despite this, she rejoined the race to claim 21st at the chequered flag.

Hoping for better luck in race two, she started from 20th on the grid and battled her way to 17th at the flag, but worse was to follow in the third race. Megan was again making good progress from down the field when another driver crashed into her, damaging her engine and injuring her elbow, which needed medical attention.

Undeterred, she took her place on the grid for the final, starting from 25th place. Another good start saw her battling in the pack as she made progress up to 17th, but a slight error when trying to pass another competitor saw her penalised and end up in 25th place out of the 31 entrants.

With more experience gained, Megan heads to the next meeting at Larkhall, in Scotland, hoping to continue her good progress.

REDCAR SG Petch Bears speedway team raced the return leg of their Knockout Cup match against a strong Glasgow Tigers team on Thursday last week on a track in really good condition after several days of rain, but lost 40-50.

Heat one saw a win for the Tigers’ Finnish rider Nike Luna, with Bears’ Lasse Bjerre in second and ex-Bear Richard Lawson in third for the Tigers. This gave the visitors a two-point lead and heat two was a repeat of the scoreline, with a win for Tigers’ Argentinian rider Fernando Garcia.

Tigers scored a 5-1 in heat three with a win for Richie Worrall, with Ben Barker in second, which made the scoreline Bears 5 Tigers 13. Ex-Bear Aaron Summers won heat four in the fastest time of the match, with Bears’ David Bellego in second place and Lee Payne in third.

Lawson scored his only win of the match in heat five, with Bears’ Jonas B Andersen in second and Luna third. The scoreline was now 10-20 in favour of the visitors, but the points were split in the next three heats with wins for Garcia, Bellego and Bears’ Hugh Skidmore. Heat nine was an exciting race, with another win for Summers, although Andersen pushed him all the way and just failed to pass him on the line.

The scoreline had now stretched to 21-33 in Glasgow’s favour and heats 10 and 11 saw the points split, with a win for Worrall and Bears’ guest rider James Sargent, who stood in for Simon Nielsen, who was injured while racing at home in Denmark.

This made the scoreline 27-39 to Glasgow and Worrall scored his third win of the match in heat 12, with Garcia behind him, to stretch their lead to 16 points. Bellego won heat 13 to put one over the two ex-Bears, while Andersen and Sargent scored a 5-1 in heat 14 for the Bears to make the scoreline 36-48.

The final heat 15 was another win for Bellego, with Worrall second and Andersen third, meaning a 10-point defeat for the home side.