YOUNG Luke hedger, from Yate, will be competing in the British Superstock 1000 Championship, after signing late for EHA Racing Aprilia.

This year the Superstock 1000 Championship has a brand new race format consisting of three types of races. they are a standard length race, fifty miles increased distance race, and one hundred miles - two fifty miles back-to-back races, punctuated by a controlled ten minute compulsory service period in pitlane to facilitate tyre changes and refueling.

There will be 17 races in total over 12 rounds and, after signing a deal late on , Hedger and the team haven't had much time to fit in testing but they did manage a couple of days in Spain which went well.

Also he was able to get in the official BSB test at Donington Park after another rider dropped out, the weather was horrendous but he braved the elements to get some much needed testing in.

Last weekend was the the first round consisting of two races, Saturday was the first 100 mile race and Sunday was a standard length race.

Friday was practice day, Hedger gets two 25 minute sessions to get set up for the weekend this went really well for young Luke he end session one in 16th out of 47 riders and session 2 in 15th knocking half a second off his time.

Saturday morning was the one and only qualifying session for the stock 1000 which happened to be wet, and Hedger seems to go well in these conditions, he was in the top ten for the first half.

He came into the pit to make a few changes and by this point had move out of the top 20 in the closing stages he found himself back up the sharp end. He ended the 25 minute session in ninth position.

That afternoon was his first race of the weekend which happened to be the one hundred mile race.

Part one was a nightmare for every one involved the circuit was damp due to an earlier shower but was rapidly drying so tyre choice would be key(some riders decided to go with full wet tyres others went for full dry tyres and other went with a wet front and dry rear tyre.

Luke decided to opt for full dry tyres,and to start with look to be the right decision but this was short lived, two laps in the havens open and Hedger found him self in the worst situation possible.

He found himself dropping down the order from ninth to 29th, not wanting to do any thing stupid he just had to be patient and hope the rain passed.

A few laps later, to Hedger's delight the rain stopped and the track start to dry out allowing Luke to finally start to race.

He managed to pull a few place back to finish part one in 22nd position.

Part two was a much better situation for all the riders the sun had come out and the circuit had dried fully so dry tyre was the way to go.

Hedger had to lined up in position 22 and he had a lot of work to do. Luke got a really good start and by the end of lap one had made up three places and by lap five he had moved up to 13th place at this point Luke had caught up with the faster group and was hooked in a battle for 10th spot, this battle continued for the remainder of the race and Luke's hard work and effort was rewarded by finishing 10th.

Race two on Sunday was a standard 16 lap race Luke would take 11th spot on the grid, as the light went out Hedger got a brilliant start jumping up to seventh by the end of the first lap.

The race got stop on lap two due to three riders crashing out and the track had to be cleaned up because of oil being left on the circuit there was a ten minute delay to allow the marshals to deal with the contamination.

As the race got back under way Hedger start this time round wasn't as good losing a couple of places off the line but he kept his cool to finish the race in 9th place and top rookie.

Hedger left Donington Park really happy,he went into the weekend hoping to finish both races with in the top 15 and did just that, he leaves Donington Park 10th in the championship.

Hedger said: “Overall I am really happy with how this weekend has gone! Two top 10 finishes is more than I could have hoped for. I am really starting to get the feel of the RSV4 Aprilia 1000 machine."