Over the weekend it was time for round 7 of the Pirelli National Sportbike Championship and a first trip to Cadwell Park for Rhys, despite it being his home round.

The weekend got off to a good start for Rhys on Saturday morning managing 13 laps and finishing the first free practice session in 4th, only 2 seconds off of the leader.

It was a similar story in the afternoon for the second free practice session, again coming in 2 seconds off of the leader but also managing to jump up a place into 3rd.

Qualifying time came around and with perfect weather and track conditions, Rhys was feeling confident of carrying over his good times from Saturday. Rhys managed 17 laps and was able to finish in 4th, only a second off the leader and posting his best time of the weekend so far with a 1:33.910.

Rhys got off to a great start in the Race on Monday jumping into 3rd on the first lap. However, on lap 2 and going into the infamous ‘mountain section’, Rhys got thrown off his bike after landing wrong and ended up in front of oncoming racers. Thankfully Rhys walked away from the crash uninjured, but his weekend was over.

This is what Rhys had to say on his weekend:

“Although my home track, Cadwell is not one I’m very familiar with, having never raced here before. Saturday’s Free practice sessions were very valuable, although the weather wasn’t the best I still managed to get plenty of laps in. Qualifying on Sunday went well, feeling much better on a dry track I managed to get a 4th place grid position for Monday’s race”.

Rhys then went on to say:

“The race started well, and I moved up into 3rd place for a while and felt I had the pace to remain there, but on lap 2 whilst in 4th place and heading over the infamous mountain, my bike landed wrong and threw me off in front of oncoming bikes. I’m not sure why it happened as I felt I hadn’t done anything different to what I had done all weekend other than I was maybe going quicker in the race, but it was the end of my race. I was hugely disappointed with not having finished the race, especially at my home round, but a lot has been learnt this weekend about bike set-up, which we will take forward to the remaining rounds”.

Despite not scoring this round, Rhys remained in 8th place overall for the championship standings and still within touching distance of the top 5.

With only 4 races and 3 rounds left of the Pirelli National Sportbike Championship, Rhys is next out on the track on the 13th of September at Oulton Park for round 8.