A HOLME Valley motorcyclist killed in a crash may have been practising a racing move he had just learned, an inquest heard.

Clive Howarth, a corporate accounts manager, had spent the morning of July 16 at Mallory Park race track, near Leicester.

He had been taking a course run by the Suzuki Performance Riding School.

A place on the course had been given to him as a 40th birthday present just a few weeks earlier.

The inquest, at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, heard that Mr Howarth was riding home through the nearby Peak District when he lost control of his Kawasaki ZX6R on a bend and came off.

He rolled into the path of a Rover 218 car and was run over.

Pathologist Charles Muronda said Mr Howarth suffered fatal chest injuries.

Mr Howarth, of Old Mill Court, Maingate, Hepworth, was airlifted to Sheffield's Northern General Hospital, where he was formally declared dead.

Crash investigator Pc Paul Vallis said motorcyclists were generally advised to negotiate bends in the centre of their carriageway. But Mr Howarth may have entered the left-hand bend from a `racing' position, near the centre white line.

Coroner Tom Kelly said: "We don't really know what happened and I don't like to conjecture. But perhaps he was practising a little of what he had learned that morning and it caused him to lose control."

Mr Howarth had been to Mallory Park with fellow motorcyclist Graham Cooper.

He said Mr Howarth was an experienced biker and they had been riding steadily.

They were heading towards the A57 Snake Pass when the collision occurred at Ladybower Reservoir viaduct, Bamford.

Mr Cooper said he was riding behind Mr Howarth, who looked in control as he overtook a car and negotiated the bend.

Motorist John Cotton said he and his wife were startled when Mr Howarth's bike approached them very quickly from behind and "shot past" their car.

The bike's back wheel `stepped sideways' and the rider tried to correct it, but lost control. "I think he was going too fast to take the corner," added Mr Cotton.

Nicola Haigh said the bike overtook her car and then wobbled. The rider rolled into the Rover's path.

Rover driver Alan Wright said: "I braked as quickly as I could and steered to the left as far as I could. I wasn't going very fast. I had almost stopped when we collided."

Pc Russ Crosby said a motorist told him a man was trapped under a car. They jacked the car up and moved it away."

The Rover had a badly under-inflated rear tyre and there was defective tread-depth on the bike's back tyre. But these were not considered to have contributed to the collision.

Mr Kelly recorded a verdict of death from injuries sustained in a collision.