YATE 19-year-old Luke Hedger made his return to the British Super Sport Championship last weekend after have to miss the start of the season due to being left without a ride.

His old team Gearlink Kawasaki, whom he raced with for the last two years, have stepped in  taking Luke back under their wing.

Gearlink managed to build Luke a race bike the week before the Oulton Park meeting. It took a few long days and late nights for Gearlink’s two mechanics Dave Harris and Daniel Dadley to complete the task.

Luke has not ridden a race yet  this season and could not wait to get back out on the Gearlink Kawasaki, which he won the National Superstock 600 Championship with in 2013, he also rode with them last year in the British Super Sport Championship finishing twelth in the final standings and taking top rookie in his class.

Luke used his track time at Oulton Park as best he could, trying to get as many laps in as possible. Luke improved throughout the weekend and started race one from 11th place on the grid. He held his position after lap one and made steady progress through the field taking a very good sixth position.

For race two, he was placed ninth on the grid but was forced to retire to pit lane after the second warm up lap due to a technical problem.

Luke said: “The weekend went pretty well and I'm really glad to be back, my first race was amazing 

“I got a solid sixth place. It was annoying with the second race but I would like to thank the Gearlink Kawasaki team for putting all there efforts into trying to fix my bike in time for race two but it wasn't to be.

“I would like to thank everyone that has made this weekend possible for me in particular my mechanic's Andrew Smith, Chris Gibbon and my dad.”

Gerlink team manager Michael de Bidaph said: “We welcomed Luke back to the team this weekend and he started off with us how he left it last year,

“I'm really pleased with his first race position considering he has not ridden since Brands Hatch in 2014. we had a problem with the bike just after the first race and thought we had fixed the problem but it reoccurred in race two and had to retire.”