Aylesford’s Howie Mainwaring-Smart had his best weekend ever in the British Superbikes with a win and a podium.

Howie has looked good in wet conditions when he has been on the Quattro Plant Kawasaki all season, underlined that with victory on Saturday afternoon.

He followed that up by taking an excellent third place in the opening race on Sunday afternoon having battled his good friend Shane Byrne for large parts of the race for the lead.

It represents a dramatic turnaround in fortunes for Howie who had to miss a number of rounds at the beginning of the season after sustaining a nasty injury in pre-season testing.

Having started in the pack for Saturday’s opening race, he soon started to pick his way through the pack in front of him.

As others weren’t quite so sure on lines and speed, Howie put his faith in his bike and his abilities and started to pick his rivals off one by one.

As soon as he hit the front of the pack there was going to be no holding him back even with the rain master Josh Walters breathing down his neck.

Ultimately his determination to win his first ever BSB race at his home circuit saw him take a popular win.

Speaking after race one a beaming Howie said: “I’m pretty emotional to be honest with you; it’s been a long time coming. We’ve done it in Superstock but I’ve never had too much luck in Superbike before. We’ve come back from that so everything’s sort of fell in place this weekend and the team have worked really hard and I can’t really thank them enough. Everyone sort of believed in us and we’ve done the job this weekend and it’s come together.

“The bikes really felt like my own all weekend in every session we’ve done. It’s been a fantastic race. I like riding with Josh Waters, we’ve had some good battles when it’s been them sort of conditions so I am really pleased.”

Then for Sunday’s first race he would line-up second on the grid by virtue of the fact he was second quickest in Saturday’s race.

He once again took to the front of the race after sweeping past James Ellison. However, when Shane Byrne caught up with him there was going to be no stopping him and despite Howie putting up a strong fight he got past.

Then for a large part of the race he followed Shakey round in second place more than holding his own with the four time champion. A mistake late on in the race let in Ellison for second but Howie held off the advancing James Ellison to take another well-earned and well deserved podium finish.

Giving his through after race two, he added: “To be honest with you I do not really believe what has happened this weekend. I think a sort of change of mind-set yesterday made the difference as we knew we were quite good in the damp conditions or the wet conditions and we had a pretty good chassis for the dry. But to come here and do it in the dry means a lot more than the win yesterday really, because we’ve proven now that we can do it and run with the boys so it was good.

“I pretty much knew I wouldn’t be very good at setting the pace on my own at the front and I knew Shakey was going to be coming so it was just a matter of time really to wait. The plan was just to hang on the back and stay there and I outdone myself on the brakes a few times.

“I went under Shakey but I knew he’d pull away and make the pace a little bit quicker. I made a couple of mistakes at the end but it was brilliant to be at the front again. It’s much better riding at the front than struggling at the back so it was fantastic!”

The final race of the season didn’t quite go to plan for Howie as he had a massive moment on his Kawasaki and unfortunately came off into the gravel trap. The end to the season won’t put a dampener on what was an excellent weekend for him.

Pictures supplied by www.psp-images.co.uk