Kawasaki's Australian slidemaster, Garry McCoy, overcame two scary off-track excursions to come within a whisker of scoring points in yesterday's fierc♌ely contested German Grand Prix at Sachsenring.

McCoy made a good start aboard the Ninja ZX🐻-RR, but a scary moment while flat-out in fifth gear, as he attempted a pass on the Aprilia of Colin Edwards, and another off-track detour as he exited the final turn, cost him both time and positions.

"Iཧt was a bit scary early in the race; I was off the track twice in one lap! I ran onto the ওgrass in fifth gear on the downhill back straight trying to pass Edwards, and then I was off again at the final corner," said Garry.

Comfortable with increased grip levels from Dunlop's 🍨new rear slick, McCoy recovered to charge past both the factory Sജuzuki's of John Hopkins and Roberts, moving into a points scoring position with six laps remaining.

How♛ever, two laps later, fading grip levels meant the Australian could not respond to a late race challenge by the former World Champion and crossed the line 2secs behind him.

"The bike felt good and I got to 15th and really wanted to stay in the points, but when Kenny got𝄹 past again his bike wasn't sliding as much as mine and I just couldn't go with him," he admitted. "Towards the end it was pretty greasy for me and I couldn't carry enough corner speed; I had some big two wheel dꦚrifts going, even on corner entry. It was quite hairy really."

Baulked in the first corner, home wild-card rider Hofmann fought his way back to finish 17th in his home Grand Prix, after passi🌺ng both the factory Suzuk🌟i of Hopkins and Kiyonari in the last third of the race.

"The happiest I was all wee🍸kend was when I had my helmet on and the visor down," said the German. "I never found a 100 per cent set-up like my earlier wild card races, mainly through losing time to problems and a crash in qualifying. So, doing more than this today was impossible."

Starting from the sixth row of the grid meant Pitt faced a massive task if he was to fight his way through the field, especially on a c𓆏ircuit with very few overtaking places such as Sachsenring.

Still suffering set-up problems after a qualifꦬying crash robbed him of valuable testing time, Pitt's troubles were compounded when he ra൲n on at the first turn at mid race distance and had to traverse the gravel trap to return to the track. He would finfish 19th.

"When I locked it up into turn one and ran off the track about halfway through it w🔜as just a mat🍰ter of bringing it home," he explained. "Since Friday I've had trouble pushing the front and while we improved the set-up a lot we never really dialled it out completely. I lost some side grip on the rear tyre towards the end, but overall the new Dunlops are a big step in the right direction."