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2005 Australian Superbike
Championship - Round Four - Mallala Team Report - Yamaha June 5th, 2005
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2005 Australian Superbike
Championship - Round Four - Mallala Team Report - Yamaha June 5th, 2005
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| Shannon Johnson has closed in
on the leading bunch to maintain fifth overall in the pointscore
after a strong showing at the fourth round of the 2005 YMF Loan
Australian Superbike Championship at Mallala Raceway north of
Adelaide this weekend (June 3-5). Shannon had a testing weekend that started with qualifying after a holed radiator caused by a wayward stone caused a fluid leak. The set back necessitated him reverting to a spare bike that slowed his charged as he started fifth on the grid In the opening 19-lap race Shannon launched off the line to be right in the action showing the awesome turn of speed of the new Yamaha YZF-R1. This was quite noticeable on the long sweeping back straight of Mallala where Johnson used the top end power of the R1 to full advantage to keep in touch with the leaders to eventually finished fourth. The second race was much more encouraging and demonstrated the constant improvement that the new R1 is undergoing by Crew Chief, Kev Marshall, as Shannon was much closer to the front fighting it out in an excellent battle with Josh Brookes. It all came down to the last lap as the pair swapped positions four times in the final circuit. Just when it appeared that Shannon had grabbed the final podium spot, in the last two corners he left a miniscule gap that Brookes muscled his way into. “Obviously, it’s not the overall result I wanted,” Shannon explained, “but again we moved forward with the set-up of the new ‘05 R1. One thing for sure is that I feel I’m getting stronger and faster every time I ride it. The Dunlop tyres are working really well also so we just have to get to a point where I can qualify consistently on the front row so I don’t have to play catch-up at the start but I know that will come.
“I’m a perfectionist and unless
I’m at the front of the field I’m not happy but the way the
package is improving I know it won’t be too long before I grab
another win.” |
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