Today was mercifully less torrid that Friday, but it was still unpleasant. A 90 minute session for the Six Hour riders in the morning and a chance for a few teams to regroup a bit. The Mick Cole Motorcycles team suffered a late setback last night when their “C” Rider, Paul Neal had a fall and severely damaged the bike and broke his leg. So, the Bega team has drafted James Bulloch from the northern beaches into their team to replace him.
The 6 Hour team of promoter, James Spence had a more serious issue in the final practice session when their ’09 R1 blew a head gasket, forcing a change to a reserve bike, an ’08 model instead. John Corbett was unable to ride so his place has been taken by Dave Johnston, an Aussie rider who has been racing in Europe this season.
The Team Green team switched the focus of their team, making their #1 team a Production team and their #2 team a Superstock team. There was one more change of a much more significant nature but it didn’t become apparent until much later in the day.
After lunch there was a second 1 hour session where each team had to send out each of their riders in turn for a 15 minute stint. Overall qualifying times would be decided on the average of times from all the riders in the team. Patently the 2-rider teams were going to be advantaged by this, as they will be by having to do fewer rider changes.
From there the top 10 went into a Superpole compettion starting with the 10th place bike and working up to the first. And what an enthralling session it was. I’ve never been a fan of Superpole; it all seems to contrived and made-for-TV for my liking, but I thoroughly enjoyed the arm-wrestle for the #1 spot. The first 5 bikes out didn’t really improve on their Qualifying times, some even going slower than they had done in the regulation session, but the top 5 more than made up for it.
In 6th spot is the Production ZX-10R of Jason Kain, who set the time, Mark Hatch and Supermotard star, Rod Taplin. This is the only Production bike in the top 10. 1:14.900
5th was the second Team Green bike, the ZX-10R SS machine with Jamie Aitken on board. 1:12.504
Then came the 4 contenders for Outright. The winner of the race should come from one of these 4, and, in the order they came out, each of them smashed the previous best time.
Oh, that other change I mentioned? The Big Kahuna Racing team of Grant Hay and Zac Davies mysteriously had a the bike out on the track during the “C” rider session and they hadn’t entered with a 3rd rider. Grant’s dad, Terry of “Shock Treatment” fame, thought they could use a 3rd rider so he put in a call to Cessnock overnight and drafted in multiple Australian Champion, Daniel Stauffer. Was THAT a surprise. I guess he gave all of us the shock treatment!!
4th will be the 6 Hour Team of James Spence, Former WEC Champion, Warwick Nowland and Dave Jonson. Nowland set a scorcher of a time. 1:11.888
Next out was the Dean Evans bike of Damien and Alex Cudlin, Damien in the saddle for the Superpole. 1:10.825.
The only Honda in the top 10, the brand new CBR1000RR of the Demolitions Plus team was second last onto the track and with current BSB/WSS/WSBK regular Russell Holland in the saddle, set a time of 1:10.155
Surely that time would stand. Though Hay and Davies had been at or near the top of the sheets since the day began, neither had been able to beat that time in regulation qualifying. But beat it they did. With the youngster, Davies, in the seat, they blitzed to Pole with a 1:09.817 !!! This despite a big slide in Turn 3. Amazing stuff.
So tomorrow we are in for an epic race and one which will surely be a fitting finale to motorcycle racing at Oran Park. It will be a day filled with nostalgia and the presence of many past champions and the ghosts of many more.
Again, I just can’t wait.