Conor Cummins' determined riding of recent weeks was finally rewarded on Sunday when the Manx ace finished back inside the points at round 10 of the Metzeler National Superstock 1000cc Championship. The Blackhorse Kawasaki rider put in another strong ride, this time around the Donington GP circuit and his, and the team's efforts, throughout the three days of action saw them take 14th place and 2 well earned Championship points. With another different circuit to tackle on the new ZX-10R Kawasaki, Conor steadily improved his pace over the two days of practice and qualifying around the 2.5-mile Leicestershire venue and after placing 26th in the opening qualifying session on Friday, he was able to reduce his time considerably during the second and final session the next day. Indeed, a time of 1m35.175s saw him take almost a second off his time and it promoted him up to 23rd on the grid, good enough for a sixth row start. Sunday's 15-lap race was the final race on a busy schedule but it finally got underway at 5.35pm and a good opening lap resulted in Conor moving up the order to 21st place. The safety car was soon out though due to an incident and when it pulled in at the end of lap 4, Conor began to put pressure on those riders in front of him. Indeed, on lap 7 he jumped up to 19th and this became 17th two laps later when Leon Hunt and Joe Burns disappeared from the action. In a race of high attrition, the safety car was again deployed from laps 10-12 and that meant it was a three-lap dash to the flag for the remainder of the 40-strong grid. With further incidents taking place out on the circuit, none more so than second and third placed riders Howie Mainwaring and Adam Jenkinson crashing out, Conor was promoted up the order to 14th and it was here where he finished, less than three seconds off a top ten finish. Speaking later, a pleased Conor said: "It started off as a really tough weekend but I really enjoyed the race and to come away with more points is really satisfying. I really struggled to get the bike set up during practice and the suspension was causing me a number of issues, being too soft on the front and too hard on the rear. I was running wide going into the corners and struggling for grip on the exits so it was hard on both counts but we made improvements all the time and after final qualifying we were a lot closer to where we wanted to be. It was quite windy out there but the bike was working well and I wanted to get points on the board again so I'm glad that I've been able to achieve that once more. Like I say, we were chasing our tails a but during practice and qualifying but we improved the bike and made progress all the time so I'm really chuffed to have scored points again especially as it was a really hectic race with a lot of the boys being all over the shop! It's been a constructive weekend, one that's had a good, happy ending and that means I can head to the next round at Silverstone with that added bit of confidence." Conor now has a two-week break before his next outing with the penultimate round of the series taking place at Silverstone, Northants on September 23-25. ENDS