MOTOR SPORT: The tenth round of the World Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch this weekend attracted a record 135,000 strong crowd.Britain's Neil Hodgson took the pole position for the Superbike races with a time of 1 minute 25.

MOTOR SPORT

The tenth round of the World Superbike Championship at Brands Hatch this weekend attracted a record 135,000 strong crowd.

Britain's Neil Hodgson took the pole position for the Superbike races with a time of 1 minute 25.7 seconds from Colin Edwards on Castrol Honda.

The championship leader Troy Bayliss struggled through qualifying after clashing with his team-mate Ruben Xaus during the qualifying session.

Race day provided the crowd with action just as hot as the weather forecasters had predicted.

The Superbike racers set a frantic pace around the Kent circuit with American Edwards winning both races in which he was pushed over the race distance of 25 laps of both races by Hodgson.

He took second place in race one with World Champion Bayliss in third place. Hodgson and Bayliss then swapped results in race two.

Suffolk rider Kieran Murphy was entered as a 'wildcard' rider in the Axo European Superstock Championship race.

After problems in the first qualifying session Murphy improved to take fourth place on the grid just half a second off pole position held by Italian and championship leader Vittorio Iannuzzo and fellow wildcards Chris Burns and Steve Brogan.

Murphy made a flying start to the race and immediately the four top riders from qualifying broke away from the rest of the pack.

Positions changed at just about every corner until on the fourth lap Brogan crashed. Burns and Murphy managed to avoid him but Iannuzzo ran into him.

The race was red flagged as the two riders were attended to by medical staff, Brogan suffered a fractured pelvis after being hit and the luckless Italian broke both legs.

At the re-start Murphy, Burns, Ross McCulloch and Andy Notman diced for the lead until Murphy and Burns broke away at the front.

Burns then managed to get away to take the win from Murphy with McCulloch in third.

Murphy was delighted with his second place finish saying his Suzuki GSXR 1000 was just about perfect but he could not match the pace of Burns at the front.

Murphy, from Copdock, now lies in seventh place in the European Championship having only competed in two of the six rounds so far this season.

Attention now turns to his National Superstock champioship campaign which resumes at Thruxton in Hampshire in August.

Murphy is in fifth position of the championship at the moment.