Rees Chasing First BSB Points Before Mountain Calls
Fresh from his NorthWest 200 success, the three-time NZSBK Superbike champion lines up 14th for Sunday’s Donington Park Superstock battle before switching focus to his second Isle of Man TT.
Sandwiched between one famous road course and the most fabled of them all, Mitch Rees is trending nicely in the circuit racing mission that comes before the Mountain calls.
The Whakatāne 32-year-old will line up 14th on the grid for Sunday’s Pirelli National Superstock race at Donington Park in the East Midlands, right in the mix to open his ZYN British Superbike Championship points account in what is shaping as another tight Superstock battle.
Just seven days ago, the Kiwi #92 was threading his Milenco by Padgett’s Racing Team Hondas through the hedgerows and housing of Northern Ireland’s Causeway Coast, banking top 10s in the Supersport (6th) and Superstock (10th) classes at the NorthWest 200 with a pair of gutsy Superbike finishes (12th and 15th) alongside TT immortals Michael Dunlop and John McGuinness thrown in for good measure.
Now it’s Donington and round 2 of BSB before the ultimate test at the TT.
Friday practice showed where Rees sits (this weekend at least) in a brutally competitive 38-rider field — 15th in FP1 (1:31.775, 1.394s off the pace), 18th in FP2 (1:31.338, 1.766 adrift). Qualifying was a different story: 30 rain-soaked minutes seeing Rees clock a 1:42.687 to qualify 14th.
That was 2.508s behind pole-sitter David Allingham, the current championship leader from Northern Ireland, who stole the top spot from Lewis Rollo on his final lap, edging him by a breathtaking 0.019s with a 1:40.179. Just 1.201 seconds covered the top 10 in qualifying.
Points are awarded down to 15th on Sunday. The Kiwi was out of them at his BSB season bow at Oulton Park on May 4, finishing 23rd after qualifying 22nd.
TT legends McGuinness (Honda Racing UK), Ian Hutchinson (Team RST) and Conor Cummins (Bathams AJN Racing) sit 17th, 11th and 36th in the Superstock standings but aren’t racing at Donington this weekend — presumably with their own Mountain course preparations taking priority. Their absence thins the top of the field but not the closeness of the racing.
The three-time NZSBK Superbike champion — who won the Vernon Cooper Trophy as top solo newcomer at his Mountain course debut in 2025 — will campaign Hondas across five classes at his second TT (Superbike, Superstock, Senior TT, Supersport and Sportbike). The iconic fortnight runs May 25-June 6.
Read our full Northwest 200 feature on the quiet Kiwi who lets his Hondas do the talking: thefinalsector.com
BSB SUPERBIKE SUMMARY
Gloucester’s Scott Redding (Hager PBM Ducati) claimed victory in a dramatic, rain-shortened opening Superbike race on Saturday after surging past championship leader Kyle Ryde on the penultimate lap before worsening conditions brought out the red flag. Nottinghamshire’s Ryde (Nitrous Competitions Yamaha) had earlier smashed the Donington Superbike lap record to claim pole with a blistering 1m 26.123s effort, but slipped to 3rd late in the race as Max Cook elevated the AJN Steelstock Kawasaki/Bimota squad to 2nd place. - Kent Gray