McCoy off twice - in one lap.

Kawasaki's Australian slidemaster, Garry McCoy, overcame two scary off-track excursions to come within a whisker of scoring points in yesterday's fiercely 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.

"It was a bit scary early in the race; I was off the track twice in one lap! I ran onto the grass 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 Suzuki's of John Hopkins and Roberts, moving into a points scoring position with six laps remaining.

However, 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 drifts 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 passing both the factory Suzuki of Hopkins and Kiyonari in the last third of the race.

"The happiest I was all weekend 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 circuit with very few overtaking places such as Sachsenring.

Still suffering set-up problems after a qualifying crash robbed him of valuable testing time, Pitt's troubles were compounded when he ran 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 was just a matter 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."