FRASER Rogers suffered a tough weekend of racing during round four of the British Superbikes National Superstock Championship at Thruxton.

The Swindon man had enjoyed a positive start to the championship but ended up with a best finish of ninth in the double-race event following a late fall in his first race.

Rogers and his IN Competition Racing team began with yet another impressive start to their weekend aboard the Aprilia RSV4 after notching P3 in the wet with a 1:23.8 and P1 in the dry during the Friday’s free-practice sessions.

After topping the leaderboard in the combined results for the practice sessions with an overall fastest lap of 1:17.705, Rogers kicked on in qualifying and finished P2 - 0.1 seconds behind Luke Stapleford who had produced the lap record.

Unfortunately for Rogers, that was as good as his weekend would get once the first race got underway properly. All three of the front-grid riders dropped a place in the first turn as fourth-placed Alex Olsen swooped.

Keen to try and reclaim a podium spot, the Swindon racer was barged out wide by another rider on lap four leaving him in fifth position. He would stay there until the penultimate lap when a racing incident saw Rogers slide off his bike.

As Rogers went into the left-handed chicane at Club corner, Keith Farmer attempted to go underneath cleanly but accidentally knocked Rogers off, causing him to slide onto the gravel.

Starting from sixth in the second race, Rogers was unable to find his usual mojo and ended up bringing his IN Competition Aprilia RSV4 home in 9th place.

Reacting to a difficult weekend, Rogers was upbeat despite his lack of success.

He said: “That was a challenging weekend for us, one that we’re not used to. It started off really well, third in the wet and first in the dry, then we went on to go inside the lap record in the qualifying session, so I was really confident for the races to commence.

“Unfortunately, I was taken out in race one, and then in race two the pace was a bit faster and the bike was working well but I had the same thing again.

“I want to thank the amazing team that gets behind me every race weekend; Ian, Myra, ‘The Data Guru’, Derek, Alex, Richard from Maxton, and the legend that is Dave Jenko.”