15 years plus six hours

Today marks the 15th Anniversary of the very last motorcycle road race at Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway, the BelRay Six Hour. It was a punishing weekend with temperatures of over 40 degrees on both Saturday and Race day and a ferocious wind storm that demolished a lot of infrastructure late on the Saturday afternoon.

I was commentator for that weekend and wasn’t relishing the idea of six hours on the mike by myself in a box that had a non-functioning air conditioner. Fortunately, rescue came in the form of Phil Harlum who stepped up to the plate at the last minute and made both of our jobs very much easier.

The race was run at a ferocious pace despite the conditions and, at the end of 277 laps in the baking heat, the Demolitions Plus Honda CBR1000 crossed the line first. Riding a Superstock-spec bike, the team of Craig Coxhell, Russell Holland and Gareth Jones led pretty much from start to finish and finished ahead of Dan Stauffer, Grant Hay and Zac Davies, on a Yamaha R1, 3 laps behind the winners. Davies had set pole but the Demolitions Plus Honda was just too good on the day. Davies also set fastest lap of the day in race trim after 90 odd laps of racing!

Rounding out the podium was the team of  the race promoter, James Spence, who was joined by former double World Endurance Champion Warwick Nowland and British Superbike rider David Johnson. It was an epic effort by Spence to not only organise the race but also compete AND put the bike on the podium. The team had to switch bikes to the previous year’s R1 Yamaha on the Saturday when the new R1 with the cross-plane engine did a head gasket late in qualifying.

Racing brothers, Damian and Alex Cudlin just missed the podium but scored in the “cred” department by being the only 2-rider team to be in contention, finishing 4th.

Goulburn veteran, Jason Kain, Rodney Taplin and Mark Hatch won the Production class.

It was a super difficult race for everyone concerned and brought great credit on the promoters and competitors who were not to know that they were all making history as the houses for the new Oran Park housing estate could already be seen at the end of the main straight.

I feel privileged that I could add that “last” statistic to my CV of race commentating.