DARLINGTON teenager Mark Burr stormed to the best result of his career when he took a brilliant fourth place in round four of the British Superbike Privateers Championship in front of 20,000 fans at Silverstone on Monday.

Riding the Hawk Racing 750cc Kawasaki, the 19-year-old followed up his tenth place in round three earlier in the day with another fine performance in race two to erase the nightmare of the opening two rounds at Donington Park when he failed to finish in both races.

But it was in the second race of the day that Burr excelled when he battled throughout the 20-lap race with a number of more experienced racers before edging them out at the flag to claim a magnificent fourth place.

Perhaps more impressively, Burr and his privateer counterparts remained on the same lap as the race winner, Steve Hislop aboard the works MonsterMob Ducati. Normally, the leading privateers - whose championship runs alongside the main British Superbike Championship - finish a lap in arrears.

Another local rider doing well was Hutton Rudby's Russ Hodgson, who equalled his best ever British Championship result when he took 13th place aboard the 125cc Tillston's Honda.

The 19-year-old salesman secured his second points-scoring ride in as many races after a great effort in qualifying placed him on row three of the grid. He battled his way up from 15th in the early stages to claim the three points for 13th in the tricky conditions.

For three of the region's other racers, Silverstone proved to be a meeting to forget as none of them actually made their races.

Ingleby Barwick rider David Gatenby survived a high speed crash in the opening qualifying session on Saturday evening after setting 21st fastest time aboard the Joe Joe's 250cc Honda.

The youngster was uninjured, but the machine was too badly damaged for the team to take any further part.

Another rider struggling to make the grid was Leyburn's James Brackenbury, who was out on his Auto Moto Yamaha R6 for only the second meeting.

The 17-year-old posted 27th fastest time in the opening dry qualifying session of the British Junior Superstock Championship while learning the track and setting up the machine for an assault during the second session the following day.

But the rain came at the wrong time for the CJ Racing Team, which meant the youngster could not improve his time and was outside the permitted qualifying time. Along with three other riders, he was harshly refused a start.

But after appealing to the race organisers, Brackenbury was allocated one of the reserve slots and went on to claim 20th place at the flag, albeit one lap down on the leaders, to record his best result to date aboard the Scott Leathers-backed machine.

But unluckiest of all was Guisborough teenager Dennis Hobbs, who retired on the warm-up lap aboard his Norwest Holst SMR 600cc Honda when the gearbox broke. The 17-year-old set 16th fastest time during qualifying and was looking forward to the race when disaster struck.