AP Kawasaki's Freddie Russo is at the front end at Oulton Park this weekend in the Metzeler National Superstock 600 championship as hopefully working through the lows will now allow him to a regular race win challenger.

Starting from third on the grid in tomorrow's race, Russo is hoping to match or improve on his second place finish that he clinched earlier in the year.  Catching up with the Brentwood rider about his season so far, he said: "It's been up and down, the low's to start off with at Brands had technical problems. The second round was here and got on the podium, then we went to Croft.  I got kicked right back to reality I came in 15th and only got a point."

"That's the way the season's gone we have had ups and downs we haven't really found any consistency until now. Last couple of rounds we've been able to get on the pace from the word go, that's my problem I take too long to get into a track, but now I've learnt to go fast in practice solve all the problems so in qualifying all you have to worry about is getting a lap in.  I am happy with the way qualifying is going, I seem to be able to qualify better. I could always race but I always made it really hard for myself being mid pack on the grid."

There seems to be a friendly rival between Russo and James East of East Coast Racing at the moment as East keeps pipping Russo to the same spot, even if by one tenth of a second so Rusoo is looking forward to eventually getting revenge.

Even though overall Russo explains that even though the chamionship is extremely fast, overall the lap times are apparently slightly slower than last year.  Despite this unexplained event the power coming out of the Kawasaki is still impressive.

Russo said: "We are getting really good power out of the bike, I am eally happy with the way the bike is set up. I am really happy with how the team have got the bike going, we've got a good understanding with the mechanics, the suspension guys; everything is going well. Hopefully this is the way the season is going to go from now on and we can really can start making some headway with the points."

"As a rider I feel I have come on, last year I always tended to push hard, go fast but I didn't know what I was doing when I was doing it because I was always crashing. Last year I think I had literally six weeks where I was testing and racing; I crashed every single race. It's no good for your confidence. In the end I ended up really hurting myself."

"I had to take a step back and build up my confidence again, the pace again. It seems I have found a good balance at getting the right speed at the right time without spilling it down the road. Helps my budget a lot and my bones."

Russo is moving into a set of circuits that he is really strong at, so if the bad luck leaves him a long there will be some interesting times ahead.