MOTOCROSS racer Allan Shields says he’s going all out for race wins as his first season in the Scottish Twin Shock Championships approaches its climax.

The Rhu rider sits in second place in the STSC’s monoshock championship with three rounds remaining – and while he says he’s too far off the pace set by the championship leader Greg Maxwell to be fighting for the overall crown, Shields says that means he can set all thoughts of settling for points aside, and can instead focus on winning as many races as possible.

Shields’ climb up to second place in the standings has been achieved despite suffering a suspected broken rib after a heavy crash in race three at the fourth meeting of the season, held at Duns in Berwickshire.

Shields began his season with a fifth place finish at Drumclog Motorpark in Ayrshire in March, and followed that with fourth overall at round two in Lochgilphead, before a fine performance at round three, held at Powmill in Perth and Kinross, saw him climb to second in the championship.

Reflecting on that meeting, Shields said: “Everything went to plan off the gates from start and I led the majority of laps on the day – although I only managed to walk away with a second place finish, this was enough to move me up to second in the championship standings.”

But his season suffered a severe blow in that fourth round of the championship at Duns – he opened up a substantial lead in race one, only to have to settle for third after a couple of offs, and was outside the top six in race two before that heavy crash in the third and final race.

Round five, at Humbie in East Lothian, was cancelled, allowing Shields some much-needed recovery time before returning to Lochgilphead for round six.

He said: “Thanks to the guys at Chris Bowman Fitness I was feeling the strongest I have all season,” Shields added, “resulting in my first race win of the season and being only seven hundreths of a second away from an overall first on the day.”

Shields is now hoping to add to his tally of race wins in the last three meetings of the season – at Powmill at the end of this month, in Alloa in mid-September, and in the Ochil hills near Perth at the beginning of October.

He added: “I can’t thank everyone who supports me enough, All the guys at Anderson Engineering, Chris Bowman Fitness and the late Peter Woods (MBE).

“Having the support from my local gym this season has been a massive help with getting my fitness to a high level and I can still build on this heading in to the last few rounds.

“I am currently 65 points behind first and 71 ahead of third so I am pretty secure in second, meaning I can really push for race wins at the final three rounds.”