Jason O'Halloran secured a great fifth place after a fraught weekend at the tenth round of Fuchs-Silkolene British Supersport at Croft Circuit (Sunday 12th September). It was an eventful weekend for the young Australian and his East Coast Racing Yamaha team after several mechanical problems over the weekend and only one full dry session, it was a fantastic result for Jason.
The weather conditions were changing throughout the weekend and after the bike problems on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, Jason only had half an hour for the second qualifying session to get a good starting position. Using ten minutes of the session to run in a new engine it was essential that he put in a fast time in the closing stages, he set a time of 1.22.971 which put him in 10th place on the grid, 0.9 off pole sitter Sam Lowes.
A bad start on race day saw Jason drop back to 12th after a melee into the opening two corners, Billy McConnell high-sided coming out of the chicane, which forced the safety car out on the track for three laps losing Jason vital passing time. The car came in after lap three and the race was go, getting his head down Jason slowly worked his way up through the field making passes on each lap. By lap seven he was through to eighth place and by lap nine he was up to sixth but was now six seconds behind the leading pack. Despite some extremely fast and consistent lap times in the closing stages of the race Jason was unable to make any ground up, race leader Graeme Gowlands Honda blew up on lap 14 of 18 forcing the red flag to come out and the race stopped moving Jason up to fifth.
Jason said "After the weekend I've had, I have to be pretty pleased with fifth. It's been a very tough weekend and we encountered a number of random problems and it just put us on the back foot all weekend. I lost a lot of vital time in the sessions to get the bike set up how I wanted it and even in warm up this morning we were still making changes. It's been a tough weekend but we managed to turn it around and get a half decent result from it all so I can't complain to much, the guys worked so hard this weekend and just glad I could half repay them. I'm still desperately in the hunt for a podium finish and I've two rounds now to try and do it so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I got caught up in the first few corners and it just put me on the back foot throughout the race which was frustrating but I got a fifth and some solid points and I've moved up to ninth in the overall Championship standings now and looking forward to the last two rounds now."
It was bad news for his East Coast Racing Yamaha team-mate Pat McDougall, Pat was running in a strong fifth place in the cup when he crashed on the oil from Gowlands' bike on the same lap. Unfortunately he was not included in the race result as he did not cross the line after the red flag came out.
He said "I'm really disappointed not to have my result included in the final results. It was a hard race up to that point I got a really bad start and was forced out wide into the first corner and just wasn't able to make up the time after that. I couldn't get a good rhythm through the first half of the track and was losing a lot of time on the people in front, I was struggling with the front end but just gutted I crashed through no fault of my own. I just need to move on to Silverstone and Oulton now and try and seal this Championship up."
Team Manager Phil Reed said "I'm really pleased with Jason's result after the problems that we had this weekend with the bike and also the weather. So to get fifth from it and move up in the Championship is really good, Jason rode a great race and proved how well he can ride in the final stages. Things got disrupted with the safety car at the start and the red flag at the end so the boys only really got a 12 lap race in. It was unfortunate for Pat crashing on Graeme's oil but thankfully he's ok if not a bit battered and bruised and should be all good for the last two rounds."
