There was a weird vibe for most of the weekend at Brands Hatch in the re-run opening round (in reality, round three) of the Bennetts British Superbike Chamionship.

Many people in the paddock on Saturday were talking about it being due to the fact that last weekend was an add-on date to make up for the original event being postponed after the several inches of snow that hit the Kent venue five weeks ago.

Others thought that we wouldn't get a big crowd at the track on Sunday because there was too many other things in the area going on at the same time (BBC Radio One's Big Weekend, for example).

Thankfully, when raceday came around the crowds flooded into the circuit, the riders were all fired up and what had felt a little odd on the non-qualifying Saturday, because the grids were taken from the original qualifying performances set at the original event the lads had a couple of free' sessions to get dialled in, suddenly clicked into place and we were off and running.

And, as expected of this year's series, we had a cracking batch of races. I hope you saw the live show we broadcasted on Sunday afternoon because the action was as mad as you can get.

I do feel sorry for both Tom Sykes and Leon Haslam though. It just feels like neither of them can catch a break at the moment. OK, so you can say that the podiums they do score are some consolation, but for both it feels a bit like for every step taken forward there's another one going backwards to void any progress made.

Leon looked like he had race two virtually sewn up on Sunday, he was up front and away but ran wide going into Surtees corner hard on the brakes. It robbed him of his considerable advantage and put paid to any thoughts he had of grabbing a victory at a track he loves racing at.

For Tom it was a blown motor that robbed him of grabbing a good solid points haul. We were based in pitlane for the live show and were watching the action in the HM Plant Honda garage when the onboard camera fitted to Leon Camier's Ducati was engulfed by an instance cloud of thick, acrid engine oil spewing from the Suzuki just feet ahead.

The HM Plant boys had the same reaction as everyone else, instant horror at what they were watching. Where Tom's bike let go is a 170mph section of track. Suddenly, with just feet and inches between six or seven guys travelling at much more than twice the maximum legal UK speed limit, the chasing riders couldn't see.

Tom couldn't do anything to save the bike or make the 140mph corner and ended up crashing, luckily the bike ended up underneath him while Tom surfed it across the top of the gravel trap which in itself probably saved Tom being hurt. I bet he's not thinking he was lucky though, I bet Tom's just thinking about missing out on those points he's lost.

But while you may feel sorry for both Leon and Tom, you've got to take your hat off to Cal Crutchlow. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Cal couldn't get comfortable sitting down because of the badly dislocated right ankle and ligament ruptures he suffered at Oulton Park just six days before raceday at Brands.

Basically, there are three ligaments holding your foot onto your ankle and in the race two Oulton crash Cal ruptured the two front ones, meaning only the back one was there to hold his foot in place. On a motorcycle you use the right foot to press down on a lever and work the back brake, Cal was in extreme pain just getting on the bike but even so, he still raced.

The red flag in race two may have brought the win to Cal as it all ended early, and Shane Byrne was setting himself up to take the win from the Honda rider, but he still had to be in the prime position to take advantage events - and he was.

Cal had spent the last few days swapping between therapies prescribed by the top physio at Coventry City Football Club. After cutting his cast of the injured joint on Tuesday (after crashing the day before!) Cal had the swollen area all around the outside of the right ankle pricked with a needle around 20 times to let the blood out. Then he was immersing the foot in ice water to try and get the swelling down so he could get into a race boot.

It was gruesome and still looked hugely painful throughout last weekend, so to still come away with a solid points haul, and that win to boot, was just incredible.

Compare his fortunes to those of team-mate Haslam. When the luck runs with you in BSB, you can end up surprising everyone - even when you're properly smashed up.

We've got a weekend off coming up, then we're out at Donington Park on May 26 for the Bank Holiday Monday round. We'll see from 12.30pm when we'll be live as ever on British Eurosport 2.

I wonder if the luck will switch from Cal to Leon around Donington, which is his home track and one that Leon knows better than anyone else currently in racing anywhere.

Going to be very interesting to see how this story pans out. See you then.

Tony Carter / Eurosport