Josh Waters wins a fiery opening Superbike match at SMP

ASBK 2023

Round Two – Sydney Motorsport Park

Alpinestars Superbike Race One

Cru Halliday (YRT) dominates every session at Sydney Motorsport Park on Friday, topping FP1, FP2, FP3 and then take pole position with a new qualifying record of 1m28,970. Even so, the gap between the top three is very small, Mike Jones (YRT) scored 1m29,019 and Josh Waters (Ducati) 1m29,020.

Troy Herfoss (Honda) and Bryan Staring (Yamaha) scored 1m29,710 and 1m29,837 respectively to place in second row with Glenn Allerton (BMW), 1m30,062. Herfoss had some rear suspension issues yesterday, which could reduce his potential, so he may have to bring more to today’s race than what the table says. the time of Friday indicated.

Arthur Sissis (Yamaha), Max Stauffer (Yamaha) and Broc Pearson (Ducati) start in row three but have plenty of time to find out if they will challenge the podium. Ted Collins (BMW) starts in row four with Matt Walters (Aprilia) and Paris Hardwick (Kawasaki).

A small shower early this afternoon moistened the track ahead of the ten-minute warm-up but the track was declared dry before the Superbikes started the lap. The riders wasted no time getting out of the pit and most riders completed six laps. Some scrubbed in a drenched state before returning, and others were content to stay out and do as many laps as they could.

Josh Waters was almost 8/10 faster than the rest of the competition in warm-up time. The McMartin Racing Ducati man was the only racer at 1m29 with 29,387, he also hit 1m29,567 in his final lap.

The best remaining record is Cru Halliday over 1m30,165 ahead of Glenn Allerton (1m30,215), Bryan Staring (1m30,345), Arthur Sissis (1m30,542), Mike Jones (1m30,576) and Troy Herfoss (1m30). ) .578).

Broc Pearson showed once again that the DesmoSport Ducati Team is taking the lead with a record of 1m30,640 in his fastest warm-up lap of the weekend. To be fair, the start of the season was challenging for the team but hopefully the worst was behind them.

Alpinestars Superbike Race One

The track temperature was just under 30 degrees when the riders started the warm-up lap registered a dry circuit. The majority of the field voted to start the 13 lap competition on Pirelli SCX tyres.

Cru Halliday had a great debut but on turn one, McMartin Racing Ducati V4 R passed to lead him past turn one. Glenn Allerton finished third, Troy Herfoss fourth, Max Stauffer fifth and Mike Jones sixth as they negotiated the latter part of the lap for the first time.

At the end of round one, Waters was only four tenths behind Halliday while Glenn Allerton was climbing through the exhaust of a #65 Yamaha. Those three leads were all at 1m34 from the start in that opening round.

Mike Jones beat Max Stauffer better, which prompted the teenager to pick up his bike, which then opened the door for Arthur Sissis to take him down to seventh, just ahead of Bryan Staring.

Josh Waters hit 1m29,001 on his first lap to set a new lap record but Halliday was only a tenth behind… Allerton made 1m29,681 to show a much greater speed than they should be… I’ve seen him since yesterday.

Troy Herfoss looked strong in fourth, trailing Jones and a few bikes behind Allerton, but a gear slip in lap three sent him plummeting and sent the Penrite Honda man sliding down to number two. seven.

Josh Waters is dead but Cru Halliday is determined not to let him escape. The pair fell behind in 1m29.0s and 1m29.1s to stay far behind the rest of the pitch. They trailed Allerton by just four laps and the BMW man began to be attacked by Mike Jones, the defending champion moving on after an unusually slow start. Bryan Staring is also true to them while Herfoss is beginning to recover from any previous problems of returning to that battle.

Herfoss overcame Sissis to return to sixth and was reeling from Allerton and Staring as that pair vie for fourth place. This fight came eight seconds behind race leader Josh Waters after completing just six laps. Halliday is currently seven-tenths behind Waters but with a convenient six-second buffer gap over third-place YRT teammate Mike Jones.

With six laps, Herfoss overtook Staring for fifth place and immediately began attacking Allerton. Man Penrite Honda soon took fourth place from Allerton in the following round and started to trail off. Herfoss will have to find more than 3.5 seconds if he reaches an agreement with Mike Jones and challenge for third place before running all the laps.

Halliday up front is still putting pressure on Waters. The YRT man had the distance down to three tenths with four laps to run.

Then smoke started to rise from the exhaust of Mike Jones’ YZF-R1M as he ran down the second turn!

The defending champion rolled off the lap while we all held our breath hoping it hadn’t spilled oil on the riders. As Jones got off the bike, it started to catch on fire… The red flag then showed up, perhaps a little later than most people expected because the YRT bike was on its side and looked like like a diesel locomotive chimney… The race declared… Well….

The depressed Jones caught the elevator back into the pit on Herfoss’ back. His hopes burned and the loss of key points sent him down to eighth place on the championship scoreboard.

Despite being credited with second place, his YRT teammate also looked a bit dejected. Halliday seems confident he has enough speed to take the win from Waters. That didn’t happen, however, 25 more points for Josh Waters….

Troy Herfoss promoted after Jones’ collapse and while he will be excited by those 18 points, he will also drop him into seventh place early due to missed shifts and the fact that he was dropped 14 seconds slow McMartin Racing Ducati after just ten laps. However, Herfoss is currently second in the championship, despite being 30 points behind Josh Waters..

Glenn Allerton is just over a second behind Herfoss to take 17 points for fourth place. Bryan just stared a few bike lanes behind to add 16 points to his total. Arthur Sissis was one second behind to finish sixth, 1.5 seconds ahead of seventh-placed Max Stauffer, who was 1.3 seconds ahead of Ted Collins, and ninth-placed Broc Pearson, man of the year. DesmoSport Ducati quickly dropped out of the lap midway and cost him at least one place. Matt Walters made the top 10 on Aprilia, 13 seconds behind Pearson.

The second race will be held under the lights at 21:15 tonight.

Alpinestars Superbike Race One Result

Alpinestars Superbike Championship Score

ASBK Calendar 2023