POLICE will use the British Superbike Championships in the region to try to find out more about a horrific motorcycle accident in which a man died last weekend.

Ralph Snowdon, 67, died when his motorbike was forced off the B1257 Helmsley to Stokesley road, in North Yorkshire, by an oncoming black-helmeted biker on a red sports machine.

Yesterday, Sergeant John Lumbard, of North Yorkshire Police, said a mobile police van would be at the Superbike event, at Croft, near Darlington, which is expected to attract about 30,000 people. Posters will be put up at the event with details of the crash.

North Yorkshire has one of the worst records of motorcycle fatalities in the country, and the Government-sponsored Think! Road Safety programme is sponsoring the Superbike event for the second year.

Yesterday, biker Scott Smart, who finished fourth in the championships last year, said he found it hard not to ride fast on some of North Yorkshire's stunning roads. Mr Smart, who is racing hero Barry Sheene's nephew, said: "There are some absolutely phenomenal roads here, I do not ride on them too much because it is far too easy to go very fast."

He urged Superbike fans visiting the event to save their racing for the track.

Sgt Lumbard said police in the region would monitor traffic leaving the event. He said: "If you use the roads as a racetrack, we will be watching and we will prosecute. There will be a police presence on a lot of the country roads, especially places we think people may use as a shortcut."

In 2003, 70 bikers and pillion passengers died on roads in Yorkshire and the Humber. A further 717 were seriously injured.

In the same year, 222 bikers died or were seriously injured in the North-East.