KRT at Wanneroo

[MadKaw]

Johnson Moves Up To Second
Yesterday
Details from a Kawasaki Racing release
KRT’S Shannon Johnson has finished runner-up in the second round of the Y-Loan Australian Superbike Championship at Barbagallo Raceway (Wanneroo), WA, yesterday.

The West Australian round was puctuated by a number of red flags requiring races to be restarted, and the premier Superbike class was no exception.

Johnson played it safe while his competitors around him threw caution to the wind, settling for third and fourth places in the two heats – but with the second race stopped, restarted and stopped again, officials have only awarded half-points for the event.

The result has seen Johnson narrow the gap in the series to second place, with only 2.5 points separating him to Russell Holland. Jamie Stauffer leads the series and took the overall win on the day at Bargagallo.

“We actually had five races,” Johnson explained. “The first race was in two parts, the second race in three. It was hard to find a rhythm all day, it was tough on the bike, the clutch – I was just happy to come away with second.

“The bike is fast and everything is working really good. The potential there is huge. I had the package to win in the first race, but with the restart I didn’t get as good a jump off the start and with the rain I didn’t adapt as well as I should and lost a few places.”

The meeting was affected by the wet weather, which caused some crashes, the reason for the stoppages.

Although the results from WA were good, Johnson is already looking forward to the South Australian round at Mallala Raceway next weekend.

“We got a lot of information to work with for Mallala, I’m confident the first win is not far away.”

“Shannon’s ride on the weekend was pretty good, he’s riding very well, his confidence is getting better and better,” said Team Manager Scott Breedin. “We’ve done a lot of work with both Shannon and the motorcycle to get it to a consistent, competitive level and he’s going very well.”

The two races were won by Shawn Giles and Adam Fergusson.

In the Supersport class, luck wasn’t with KRT’s Josh Waters. “In the first race I got run into from behind by a rider who hasn’t raced in the Australian Supersport Championship before and he took me out,” Waters explained about him non-finish in the first race.

Fired up to do better in the second race, Waters pegged back the leading pack but ran off into the sand in the difficult bowl-section of the West Australian circuit. He got back on the track but had lost a lot of group to the leaders - he still managed to score seven championship points. He lies tenth in the championship standings.

The next round of the Y-Loan Australian Superbike Championship is at Mallala, South Australia, June 2-4.

[HemiDuty]

Go Shannon!!!!!!!!!!!