By Russell Colvin
Jam Jerrup’s Zack Johnson has secured third place in the 2021 Australian Supersport 300 Championship after the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) came to a close at The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia on the weekend.
Johnson started off the third round of the Supersport 300 championship modestly, with the 21-year-old and his team taking a whole day to get everything right, in terms of bike settings.
In typical Johnson style, he just kept chipping away, bit by bit, and focused on dialling in his Kawasaki Ninja 400-machine to suit the 4.95km circuit.
By the end of the third session on Friday, Johnson posted the fastest Free Practice session with a time of 2min10.146, which was good enough for third place in the overall combined times.
“I’m pretty happy with how the day has panned out,” Johnson said.
“I’m not going to lie; we struggled this morning and we were chasing out tails a bit. However, thanks to my crew chief, Chris Edmunds, we found a setup which I feel very comfortable with, so I’m feeling good heading into qualifying and race one tomorrow.”
With minor setup changes ahead of qualifying-one on Saturday morning, Johnson recorded the third quickest time with a 2min09.748 – .308sec off the fastest time.
After the second qualifying session Johnson slipped back to sixth place, on the second row of the grid.
Saturday’s opening seven-lap race saw Johnson finish in fifth place. After getting caught in a mid-pack fight, he left his run too late to battle for a potential top-three finish.
“I made the race hard for myself after not getting the best of starts,” explained Johnson.
“But I still scored some decent points and we head into the final two races tomorrow with an outside chance of winning the title. My main focus now is to hold onto second in the championship.”
In race two – on Sunday – Johnson finished fourth, which saw him go into the final race of the year 21-points behind the championship leader, still with a mathematical chance of winning the title.
However, with an 11-rider pack all fighting for the lead, Johnson came out of turn 11 and into turn 12 with a rider in front of him, leaving him nowhere to go.
The end result saw Johnson hitting the backend of his fellow competitor and crashing.
Johnson was able to remount and come home in 26th position. However, no points were scored, which meant he finished in third place in the championship standings.
“Overall, I can’t be too disappointed about the result in terms of the championship outcome,” expressed Johnson.
“I would have liked to finish in second place in the championship, but it wasn’t to be due to the crash in the third race.
“I just have to thank all my sponsors who have helped me out over the course of this year.
“It’s been a trying year in terms of the Covid-19 lockdowns, so it’s nice to finally get this last round of the ASBK in to be able to reward the sponsors with some results.”
