Herfoss tops inaugural practice at The Bend as Miller knocks out new bike

ASBK 2022

The End of The Bend

This morning, a bright and brilliant morning greeted the competitors at The Bend for the seventh and final round of the 2022 Mi-bike Insurance Australian Superbike Championship.

Supersport competes on his track shortly after 09:00 this morning as the mercury crosses 20 degrees on its way to reaching its expected peak later this afternoon that could inched into the mid-30s.

Ty Lynch set the pace initially in Supersport but timing was far from what we might expect as things turned a little more serious this afternoon. Bend’s surface is notoriously green at the start of any race weekend, and it’s not until there’s a significant flattening of the rubber that competitors see the grip go fast.

For Superbike, the morning was the first lap Jack Miller, Josh Hook and Marcel Schroetter ever rode on Miller Motorsports machines. The Ducati, Honda and Yamaha motorcycles were prepared by Franko’s Race Shop in Townsville, a workshop more familiar with building motorcycles and having never turned the wheel on a track. Speaking of these guys jumping to the bottom…

As we mentioned earlier when covering Supersport, the track is going to be very green this morning and no one wants to burn this place down.

However, no one told Wayne Maxwell that… The defending champion took the lead with a record of 1m52,749 in his third round of the session on Boost Mobile Ducati, scoring an early goal for the survivors. chasing again…

Arthur Sissis was also very fast this morning, a few laps at 1m53 helping him reach P2 before being pushed down to P3 by Troy Herfoss, the Penrite Honda man reached 1m53,109. Then, Sissis inched a little closer after hitting 1m53,216 in the sixth round of the 25-minute session.

Then with less than ten minutes left Anthony West dropped to 1m53,092 to go P2 and backed it up with 1m53,400, followed by 1m53,469. West is particularly strong in the second area of ​​the track. West used Dunlop rubber again this weekend and Dunlop has enjoyed considerable success here in the past, especially when the surface is new and very abrasive.

Cru Halliday then surged to P2 after the 1m52,823 in his seventh round of the session. Josh Waters then shot from P8 to P3 with 1.52,950.

With five minutes to run Maxwell was on another flyer…. Good in the first two splits, but lost a bit in the third and fourth area, which kept him from improving his original marker. The next period, though he was 0.353 seconds lower in the first division, but dropped to 0.202 seconds in the second area, 0.116 below in the third before crossing the line to establish a point new mark is 1m52,521.

Bryan Staring then jumped up the leaderboard to P2 with 1m52,796, just seconds later being pushed back to P4 as both Arthur Sissis and Troy Herfoss went P1 and P2, pushing Maxwell back to P3. 1m51,774 is the new benchmark from Sissis.

The track has clearly started rubber and the riders are taking advantage of it.

Herfoss then made an excellent second zone in the next round, 0.251 seconds behind, 0.154 seconds back in the third split and then he took the lead in checkered flags with 1m51,737 just by pips Sissis.

So we have Penrite Honda and Troy Herfoss at the top here this morning. Mike Jones advanced to P3 at the end of his last lap, 1m52,503 to finish the section right in front of Wayne Maxwell and Bryan Staring.

Cru Halliday sixth, Josh Waters seventh, Anthony West eighth, Jed Metcher P9 and Glenn Allerton made the top 10 ahead of Jack Miller. Of course, the MotoGP stars had their first laps knocking down that brand new and completely untested bike.

For reference, the qualifying record here at The Bend is 1m50,520 and the lap record is 1m50,972, both set by Wayne Maxwell here last year.

Alpinestars Superbike FP1 times

Bend ASBK Schedule