By Carly Rathmell
May 17 2005

www.xpressracing.co.uk Hinckley based Dave Johnson and his Xpress Racing Team suffered a difficult weekend at the fifth round of the Metzeler Superstock Championships, at Mondello Park, Ireland, at the weekend. Despite Johnson’s valiant efforts the 22-year-old Australian could only grasp 22nd place.

Hindered with a broken fork oil seal at the start of the second qualifying, Johnson unfortunately missed the majority of the session and had to rely on his first session time - which saw him start from 14th on the grid. He battled hard throughout the race and managed to hoist himself to 11th during the race, until a last lap incident saw him run wide onto the gravel and as he regained he had dropped a number of places.

Dave Johnson - photo © Raceline Photography

A disheartened Dave said, “It’s a long way to come not to score any points. It’s my first time at Mondello and so it was a tough learning curve - getting to know the track in the short time that we had. I missed the second qualifying session, which was a shame, as I was running in the top six in the first session and I’m sure I could have bettered my time. We all worked really hard to get things right and the bike felt fantastic. Obviously I’ve learnt a lot this weekend, and we have gained a good set up for the bike if we return to Ireland next year.”

Backing up his comments Team Manager Nigel Broomhall said, “Although we didn’t get the results we were hoping for, it certainly wasn’t through lack of trying. Dave worked exceptionally hard throughout the weekend. As a team it was a huge learning curve for us, and we have taken a lot of information away from the event. Dave really knuckled down over the weekend, and learnt the track incredibly quickly. He’s a great rider to work with, and I’m sure we’ll get some more positive results to back that up at the forthcoming events.”

The next Metzeler Superstock race is at Croft Circuit, North Yorkshire, on the 5th June.

Championship standings after five rounds:
1 Jackson, 89
2 Young, 78
3 Tinsley, 76
4 Fitzpatrick, 49
= Rainey, 49
6 Coates, 47
7 Johnson, 37