SUPERBIKES: Neil Hodgson today continued the up-and-down start to his weekend Down Under to park his bike on the front row of tomorrow's race grid, writes NEIL BRAMWELL.

The Burnley rider mastered the predicted foul conditions for the third round of the World Superbike championship at Phillip Island, Australia, to finish second fastest on the final day of qualifying.

The GSE Racing star finished the wet weather Superpole session to finish just under 0.2seconds slower than local favourite and championship leader Troy Croser.

He said: "The wind was fantastic for me today. I think it blew me onto line because I was off line yesterday.

"I'm hoping it's windy tomorrow because yesterday was a disaster and everything that could go wrong, went wrong.

"Maybe I got rid of my bad luck yesterday. I'm really chuffed and now I'm looking forward to the races." Instead of the normal one lap shoot-out, wind and damp conditions resulted

in officials reverting to the safer alternative, where riders have a maximum

of 12 laps in which to record their fastest time within the 50-minute

session.

Hodgson's ninth lap was the decisive one, resulting in a front row grid

start for the second time this year.

And it had looked as though he might pinch pole position, until Corser

picked up 0.2 seconds on the final split.

At one stage, though, the Burnley rider could have been forgiven for doing

a little rain dance tonight as he struggled in yesterday's dry conditions.

But, having set the seventh fastest time in the wet morning's wet

qualifying session, he improved in the afternoon's final dry session with

the fourth fastest time, behind Corser, Colin Edwards and Troy Bayliss, with

a lap time of 1:35.528 seconds - setting the scene for the Superpole finale. The return of the rain, though, might play into the hands of a threat from

a source all too familiar to Hodgson - his former team-mate, Carl Fogarty.

The retired four-times World Superbike champion has been asked by Ducati to

develop the raw talent of Spanish rider Ruben Xaus.

While the 22-year-old has so far been hit and miss in the dry conditions of

Spain and South Africa, Xaus was head and shoulders above the rest of the

field when the rain swept in off the Antarctic Ocean here this morning.

And that was nothing more than Fogarty, who has stayed in England to

continue working on putting together his own team for next year's series,

had predicted all along.

He said: "I have seen Ruben race in the wet a few times and he is very

fast. I have said all along that if it rains and he stays on the bike, he

has a good chance of winning races."