MICHAEL Rutter believes the Oulton Park track did something it hasn’t done in 20 years after he endured another frustrating weekend.

Rutter headed to the Cheshire circuit off the back of two failures at Thruxton last month but his fortunes didn’t improve much in the three races scheduled.

The MSS Bathams Kawasaki rider finished eighth in the first British Superbikes race of the weekend on Sunday.

Changeable conditions then saw Rutter fail to finish race two on Monday, before a 15th in the dry on his final outing left the Dudley rider scratching his head at the circuit.

He said: “In race one at Oulton Park we had massive tyre wear and in race two we thought the track was going to dry after some rain because it normally does so pretty quickly.

“My past 20 years of experience of the track were wrong though, and it didn’t dry. When you start trying too hard you go down so we came in and lost time there.

“And in the last race we changed the bike quite a bit to help the tyres and it took me a few laps to get into it. By the time I did that I was in no man’s land and ended up 15th.

“The last two meetings have been a bit of disaster really.”

Rutter is preparing himself for a busy month with an imminent trip to the North West 200, followed by round four of the Superbikes championship at Snetterton and then the Isle of Man TT.

While content to be on the bike so much, Rutter admits what he really wants is to test his machinery on short circuits ahead of Snetterton.

He said: “I’ll travel to the North West 200 this weekend and when I get back from there it is obviously Snetterton and then the TT straight away after that.

“I need to go short circuit testing but you make the best of the situation. We just need more help and that is always the case. It is never easy — it isn’t easy for anyone.”

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