NORTH Yorkshire motorbike racer Sam Holme has enjoyed his "strongest race of the year" in the seventh round of the British Superbike championship.

The Elvington speedster is currently 29th in the overall standings, having only recently gotten rid of the electrical problems that forced him to retire in round three and miss round four.

At this round at Thruxton, Holme posted his best finish of 13th, following a 22nd-placed finish in the previous round at Brands Hatch.

The rider and his team went into Brands Hatch with optimism and, after giving a positive showing in a washed-out second free practice, finished 21st in qualifying following a crash.

On the race itself, Holme got a good start and climbed to 14th on the first lap but slipped down the rankings thereafter, eventually finishing 22nd.

After making some adjustments to the suspension for Thruxton, Holme was only able to finish half of the first free practice, but knocked a promising 1.5 seconds off his best lap time in the second free practice.

The evening warm-up saw an improvement of yet another second to his best time before Holme recovered an impressive five places in the last lap of the actual race to take 13th and shave his time down to one minute 20.8 seconds.

Holme said of the Thruxton race: "I got a really good start and I found myself straight away in a race-long seven-rider battle which was literally elbow-to-elbow with countless overtakes from start to finish.

"I really enjoyed it and it was by far our strongest race of the year so far which I was buzzing about.

"To have the pace to make up that many places and also beat my time from qualifying on the last lap was a mint step forward and I can’t wait for Cadwell Park."