The East Coast Racing team had a good start to their weekend at round seven of the British Supersport Championship at Oulton Park, Lee Johnston gained ninth place and Gary Johnson gained 12th before getting a 20 second penalty dropping him back to 19th.

Lee qualified in 11th place in the drying conditions this morning, he was in third or fourth place for most of the session but was unable to come in and change onto a dry tyre, which most riders did in the final few minutes dropping him back down the pack. In the frantic action packed race Lee got a boxed into the first corner and was pushed back to 13th after the first lap and he dug deep and put in some good lap times and got back through to ninth position at the chequered flag.

He said “It was a pretty good race but once again I messed up on the start and lost a load of places by the second turn. I knew my lap times were pretty good and made a few good clean passes to get back into the top ten. It was a pretty hard race and the leaders bridged a gap and my lap times weren’t good enough to be able to catch them. I’ve got a second row start tomorrow so hopefully I will be able to take advantage of it.”

Gary Johnson was struggling with chatter problems in the qualifying session this morning and with the conditions he was unable to find a solution and therefore qualified in 23rd place on the grid. He gained a stunning start and was lying in 11th after the opening lap, he rode a very solid race gaining some good times and finally gained 12th place. However, due to an incident with Jesse Trayler on the opening lap Gary was penalised a 20 second time penalty for a coming together which resulted in Trayler crashing out of the race uninjured. This dropped Gary from 12th place to 19th in the race but he will now start from 10th place on grid for the race tomorrow.

Gary said

“I did get a great start and tried to follow Ben Wilson through as he was on a mission. I passed Ben into Shell and he re-passed me and a shed load of riders causing a domino effect and slowing everyone down and bunching everyone together. I thought I was on the racing line when Jesse and I touched, there was no where for me to go, I didn’t realise he’d come off until afterwards but it wasn’t done on purpose, just the first lap melee. I enjoyed the race and the bike finally felt pretty good so hopefully tomorrow I can get myself back in the points and get a decent result.”