In the soaking wet conditions at round five of the British Supersport Championship at Knockhill circuit, the East Coast Racing riders had mixed results in the 18-lap race as Lee Johnston crashed out whilst battling for third position and recent TT winner Gary Johnson ended up in seventh.

The rain has continuously fallen over the last two days and Lee has been riding extremely well throughout the practice and qualifying sessions and ended up qualifying in fifth place for the 18-lap race and Gary ended up in 11th.

As the rain fell and the riders lined up on the grid, Lee got a great start and settled in to a comfortable position into the tight first turn and was eager to stay with the front runners and not let them break too much of a gap. He got his head down and was soon setting fast lap times catching third and fourth place riders Ben Wilson and Luke Stapleford. By lap seven he got passed Luke and lap twelve passed Ben but disaster struck on lap 14 when both Luke and Ben came back past and Lee was unfortunate to loose the front at Scotsman corner crashing out heavily. Thankfully he has been declared fit by the medics and will start on the front row tomorrow from fourth position.

He said “I’m really disappointed as I didn’t get to race at Thruxton and was really looking forward to get back out racing at Knockhill. It’s one of my favourite tracks and I really wanted to get a good result here, at least now we’ve two races so hopefully I might be able to pull something out of the bag tomorrow. I was running well and the bike felt really good but it was a pretty big crash so I’m feeling a bit beaten up at the minute. No one is really sure on what the weather is going to do tomorrow but I hope I can make up for my mistake, I’m just gutted as I wanted to keep getting consistent results.”

Gary Johnson had a steady race and was swapping positions on most of the laps, after a great start he was in sixth after lap one but was unable to catch the leaders. He maintained a steady pace and brought the East Coast Racing Honda home in seventh. Gary will start tomorrow’s 25-lap race in 12th position on the grid.

He said “It was an average race nothing special and I the conditions were pretty bad with the spray from the bikes in front. I didn’t want to do anything stupid and it’s quite difficult to settle back into short track racing after being at the TT for the last two weeks it’s hard to get back into a rhythm. The conditions certainly weren’t ideal and I was counting down the laps. It’s still another solid finish and who knows what tomorrow will bring. I was pleased with my start but just struggled a bit with my pace and keeping with the front boys.”