Splitlath Motorsport’s Joe Burns battled through the grid at Donington this weekend for the British round of the Superstock 600 European Championship to finish just outside the top ten in 11th place.
Burns came to the circuit aiming to improve on his sixth place qualifying position last year, but the weekend was not off to a great start.  He struggled with setup which at first was thought to do with the tyres, but later discovered it was the suspension settings.
With the sessions that were wasted in working through the issues Burns went into Saturday’s qualifying session with a new setup and in wet conditions.  He qualified in 12th place for Sunday’s race, but after disappointingly falling down the order in the race he had to battled his way back up the order.  
The result may not have been as high as hoped when going into the weekend, but again Burns on track proved his ability to ride and successfully take on world level competitors, picking them off one by one to get back in the points.
Burns is currently fourth in the Metzeler National Superstock 600 Championship that supports British Superbikes, talking about his season so far he said: “It is all going fairly well, we have been struggling in qualifying and I have been doing all the work in the race.”
“We usually have setup problems with the shock or tyres, but have normally worked through them by the time we get to practice on race day.  At Snetterton if I had done my time that I did in the morning warm up in qualifying, I would have been on the top two rows.”
Burns has constantly finished in the top ten which includes a third place podium at the first round at Brands Hatch.  Still strong results, but he aimed to constantly be in the top five, but issues have held him back.  Each race he has battled back to make up anything between five and ten places.
Even though he is fully focused on his season’s racing, plans are already being made for next year.  2010 may see Burns take on the challenge of a 1000cc, Burns said: “I feel that I am a bit big for the 600 and my weight is a bit heavy.  I think I have done as much as I can with a 600cc, I sometimes get on the bike and feel I need more power.”
“I am hoping for Aprilia RS4, it is the same sort of size as my 600cc, but has the extra power.  Moving to a 1000cc is a bit scary, but exciting.  I am not sure which class we will do, if we can the BSB Cup, if not the Senior Superstock.  We will be staying at BSB, I think I would need to do a couple of years first then see how we’ve done before thinking about World.”
“We will be testing the Aprilia as well as the R1 and a CBR, I’ve already had a bit of go an R1 and my 600cc felt faster, I wasn’t surprised by it.  We will test and see which one is the best to move forward with, but I am hoping for the Aprilia. It’s a bit different to the others, I obviously do want the bike to be good, but I want it also to be a bit fancy which the Aprilia is.”
Next weekend he returns to Knockhill to continue in the British series, a circuit at which he has done quite a bit of testing giving putting him in his strongest position yet going into a race weekend.