DEAN Harrison says he is looking forward to a strong end to the superbikes season, buoyed by returning fans.

The Bradford rider has competed in a number of rounds of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship campaign this year, he says a lot more of the competition's races than he usually would as other events this season have been cancelled due to the pandemic. This included him unable to defend his Isle of Man Senior TT he won in June last year.

He has bounced back after testing positive for Covid last month and is looking forward to the final five meetings of the superbikes season.

But Harrison, 32, of Silicone Engineering Racing Kawasaki, had mixed fortunes in last weekend's meeting at Cadwell Park.

He was one of three riders who did not finish in race one, completing just four laps. He recovered to finish 14th in the second race and was 16th in the third event.

Harrison is now resting and back at work as he prepares for the championship's seventh round at Snetterton, held from September 3 to 5. He will then be in action at Silverstone the following week.

But Harrison is especially looking forward to three tracks which he favours to end the superbikes season at Oulton Park, Donnington Park and wrapping up the campaign at Brands Hatch between October 15 to 17.

He says it has been an 'up and down' season for him but is happy to be back in action after missing all of last season.

Harrison said: "I'm riding the older model bike but this season has not been too bad. I'm riding the 2019 bike at the moment.

"We have had some back-to-back events, it's been a really tight schedule. The season is condensed. I do like doing that, going from meeting to meeting. It's not something I normally do.

"I don't normally do this number of British Championship races. I normally only do one or two race, but this season it has been the only we have been able to do.

"It's been nice to get my teeth into. My best result at Cadwell Park last weekend was 14th, which wasn't too bad.

"We have five meetings left of the season. The next two are my worst two tracks, but it's my favourite three tracks to end the season.

"I'm looking forward to a bit of a rest now, I'm back at work and then I'll get ready for the next meeting.

"It's been great to get back into the swing of things. It's all going well.

"It had to happen having crowds back. When we did the start of the season it was weird with no spectators to what we're used to it with 30,000 to 40,000 people watching. It was a bit strange."

Before sitting out of action with Covid, Harrison started the year off well as he picked up a 14th place finish in the league's curtain raiser at Oulton Park in June.

Harrison banked the squad’s first points of the year in Saturday’s race and made further steps forward on Sunday, despite retiring from the second race with a small mechanical problem.