Keith Farmer is back scoring Championship points in the British Superbike series just six weeks after a shoulder injury threatened to wipe out his season.

The Clogher rider crashed in qualifying at the season opener and was forced to sit on the side lines for the first three events, but returned to his Buildbase Suzuki for the latest round at Oulton Park, grabbing a point with a 15th place finish in the weekend’s opening race.

The shoulder injury came after his recovery from a double leg break last season, so his Oulton Park outing was his first competitive weekend for over a year, and he declared himself happy with his comeback.

“I have had no bike fitness, no race fitness, and I haven’t been in that situation, so to come out of race one in 15th was okay,” he said.

“Going into the weekend I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t know if my shoulder was going to hold up and be strong enough, and also I didn’t know if I would be fit enough, because I hadn’t really been able to train properly for six weeks.

“Thankfully it wasn’t actually that bad. I had expected to get through Friday and Saturday and then be in agony and possibly not ride on Sunday, but it worked out that it there was no initial pain from the shoulder.”

Farmer qualified in 18th spot for the first race, and despite struggling to master the handling of the bike in the early stages, he came home in a point scoring position.

“I ran really wide a couple of times because I wasn’t used to a full fuel load and new tyres,” he admitted.

“We never thought during practice because we were trying to get a feeling for the bike. I struggled to get the bike stopped and I kept running wide which hindered us a little bit but once I got five or six laps in I felt comfortable and my race pace was good enough to be in the top 15 or top 12.”

In race two Keith put in the fastest lap time of his weekend, but a steering damper problem caused a vibration that forced his retirement. The final race was once again thwarted by handling issues.

“In race three I kept running wide a little bit,” he revealed.

“I felt a little bit more comfortable than I had all weekend and I was having a bit more of a go to try and squeeze the lever a bit harder to try to get stopped but it just didn’t feel comfortable.

“I ended up running wide at a chicane and had to go through a load of barriers and that put me back five or six seconds and all I could do was get more time on the bike from there.

“My race pace for the last seven or eight laps was matching my teammate Kyle who was running in 12th position. To do that, I was quite content with my first full race weekend back in 15 months.”

Keith will continue his comeback at Donnington Park at the start of October, and he is hoping they can build on his showing at Oulton Park.

“I like Donnington,” he revealed. “I have had good runs there in the past and I had a good pace there last year on the BMW. If I can get stronger and get a bit more bike fit for that weekend, then hopefully we can aim for three top 15 finishes and get faster every session. That is our aim.”

Lee Johnston is still looking for his first British Supersport Championship win of the season after he claimed fourth place and sixth place finishes onboard his Yamaha R6.

Rory Skinner has been dominant rider in the category this season, but he was finally edged out in the first race of the weekend by teammate Brad Jones.

Johnston had proved to be Skinner’s closest challenger in the last round, but on this occasion he struggled to match the pace of the Tysers Yamaha team.

Johnston settled into an early third place in the race with less than half a second separating the first four riders in a closely contested battle.

The riders constantly switched position as the race progressed, before the top two started to pull away in the closing stages, with Johnston eventually claiming fourth spot.

The feature race followed a similar pattern with the top two of Skinner and Jones pulling clear, while Lee was locked in a four-way battle for third.

The chasing pack remained locked together throughout the race, but Lee had to settle for sixth overall, less than a second off third.