Australian Superstock 600cc Class - Round 1 Phillip Island

The first race for the year is always very exciting! Yet with no practice under my belt since last year I guess I felt a bit under prepared and in a less than ideal situation. There was also the looming evidence that the new control tyres for our class aren’t as “great” as last years tyres but I was sure a few laps of the island would soon tell if I liked them or not. There were small set-up changes made to the bike in regards to the suspension to compensate for the different tyres and “pinky” had a brand new set of shiny pink fairings ready to race.

Once again we had the biggest number of entries in our class which consisted of approximately 30 riders so it was a very busy qualifying session on Thursday morning after only 20mins practice on our new tyres. Well surprisingly I managed to qualify in 10th position on the grid, with a personal best lap time! Although most of the riders complained about front end grip with the new tyres I seemed to have more of an issue with turning the bike! The new set up made it more difficult for me to tip the bike in on a turn and when exiting the corner on the throttle I seemed to run wide… but I wasn’t complaining with top 10 that’s for sure.

Race 1 saw me off to a terrible start – it is very daunting having 30 riders all aiming for the one race line so the first lap I was a bit hesitant and ended up almost last by the first lap was done. However… I fought my way back through the pack of riders and picked off one by one to finish the race in tenth position.

Race 2 was a much better start but I stuffed up and missed some gears so other riders took this to their advantage and overtook me and I ended up in 11th

Race 3 started and it was almost 6pm – time for dinner – not racing! I was on my last flying lap and decided to overtake a rider under brakes through a hairpin turn and well I guess I was going too fast for my own good as I couldn’t pull the bike up in time so rather then T bone the other rider I decided to try to tip in hard on the right and make the turn… I didn’t… and I went down. And I took the other rider with me. That was quite disappointing as I was heading for 9th! Pinky only ended up with a few small war wounds that can be easily fixed.

Racing resumes in 3 weeks time for the 1st round of the NSW series where I will have had more time to practice and hopefully learn how to use my brakes a bit better!

Thank you to all my sponsors who make racing happen.

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