SILICONE Engineering Racing and rider Dean Harrison banked their strongest and most consistent race weekend of the season with three solid points finishes at Oulton Park.
After finishing 14th in Saturday’s opening Bennetts British Superbike Championship race at the Cheshire circuit, the road racing ace backed it up with a 12th and 13th in Sunday’s two scraps.
Lining up 17th on the grid for the weekend’s second race, Harrison made a strong start and quickly moved up into the points-paying positions as he got ahead of three riders on the opening lap.
He dropped back to 15th on lap five but was back up a place the next time around, picking up one more spot with seven laps to go and stealing yet another on the final lap to take the chequered flag in 12th.
Starting on row five for the final battle, Harrison held his position for the opening half of the race as he fended off a number of BSB podium finishers and race winners.
By half-distance, he’d snatched another place and, in similar fashion, picked up yet another on the final lap to bag three points for 13th – just six tenths off 12th.
Elsewhere, The 2021 British Supersport rollercoaster season continued for Appleyard Macadam Yamaha at Oulton Park, as both riders came back from lowly wet qualifying positions to perform well before a double DNF in the second race.
In the opening Sprint race Brad Perie had a ‘flyer’ from the fifth row to catapult himself up to the main leading group early on. He then had a race long battle with Lee Johnston and ended up fifth. Rhys Irwin got bogged down with a group of GP2 riders and had to settle with 11th.
Sunday’s Feature Race saw Brad get away with the leaders but disappointingly he had to pull out with an electrical issue that the team had not experienced before. Rhys then had a clutch operating problem adding to the team’s frustration.
Team Owner Robin Appleyard said, “It’s a disappointing day for sure after showing good pace yesterday. Brad had a good ride up to fifth but we were unlucky today with two very rare and slightly freak technical issues with the electrics and clutch."
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