YATE motor cyclist Luke Hedger admitted racing at Thruxton in Hampshire was ‘tough’ last weekend as the gremlins hit him and his team.

It was MCE British Superbikes Championship round seven but with the course a hard one, it was certainly going difficult on the tyres.

Hedger had a few issues during practice and qualifying which found him in twentieth for the first race on Saturday.

With new settings in place and unpredictable weather patterns, the 21-year-old did not get much time on the track before being thrust into the first race of two for the weekend.

A field of 25 riders set off on the green flag lap before roaring round the first bend at well over 100mph.

A squad of scramblers soon formed up front, leaving Hedger with a lot of work to do from his starting place on the grid.

He brought the EHA Racing Aprilia team home in 17th place after a small deduction of 0.5 seconds for exceeding the track limit.

With luck not on his side, he went away to refocus and to put his mind in gear for the main race ahead.

He started that contest from 16th on the grid and finally had some consistency with the weather as there was little cloud in the sky.

But the race was red flagged soon after the start following a racing incident on the fifth lap which saw the whole field brought to a complete halt for the next hour.

The race was then restarted with the now shorter distance of eight laps.

Hedger moved up into 13th place where he stayed for the rest of the race, not able to gain any more on the leading pack.

Afterwards, Hedger conceded: “There’s not a lot to say about this weekend, apart from it was a tough one and we suffered bad luck in every session.

“We had the pace in Sunday’s race but suffered more bad luck with the bike.

“But I can’t thank Ian enough for all his hard work. I couldn’t have got that bike round Thruxton without his support.”