Since Jay is also riding his heart out, he did not look particularly beatable in practice, setting his 4th consecutive pole at a stunning 1m11.895s which was comfortably under Josh Brookes' 2000 record of 1m12.405.

Team-mates Andrew Brooks & Peter Galvin, plus Michael Teniswood made up the rest of the front row. Local lad Rudi Muller, Peter Taplin, Adrian Schlegel & I made up the second. Peter T had improved 1.5 secs from his Q1 time, whereas I had stuffed around & not gone much faster. Adrian was also pretty low, as he was on the hunt for more points after falling behind a little at Willowbank.

At Mallala, the field funnels straight off the line into a right/ left combo, so the resultant first lap mayhem was not really a surprise.  Race 1 saw the fast-starting Adrian Schlegel tore past me on a narrow-in, wide-out, line which unfortunately intersected the wide-in, narrow-out, line Rudi Muller was already committed to from the other side of grid row 2. The surprised Rudi flew off the track like a billiard ball being potted, but managed to rejoin & eventually claw back to 6th.

Then in the off-camber left, Michael Teniswood got on the gas a bit hard & was highsided quite violently just in front of me. I calculated, as he tumbled through the air, that my line would miss him, but a recovering Adrian was now set up to collect him, & that was the end of the race for both of them.

Well clear of this, Jay went on to win by some 2 seconds, followed by the Team Tecknic bikes welded together, with Andrew Brooks taking the flag one-tenth of a second before Peter.

It might strike you that the guy in front of me in the points wiped out the guy behind me, however, I had a race-long tussle with Peter Taplin that I lost by just over half a second. He is very good under brakes & Mallala's hairpins make this a useful advantage. I feel I was stronger on mid corner drive, but I'd then get bombed again at the next slow corner.

Matt Graham, who had two very good rides at Willowbank, was next, & Luke Everson came home behind him as the first C grader.

Jay won again in race 2 and this time by an 8 second margin over the longer 45km race distance.

"Tyre-wall" Galvin is getting tired of people bouncing off him. First it was Jay in QLD (with however a waved apology). This round it was the turn of team-mate Andrew Brooks to dive up the inside & leave an attractive handlebar shaped bruise as a memento of the encounter.

Andrew's father & mechanic, Peter, watched anxiously from pit lane, car keys in hand. His plan was to drive immediately back to Melbourne should Peter crash, leaving Andrew to face the wrath of the team alone …

Andrew looked back, & seeing that Peter was still on board, got his head down & bum up. This spurred on the normally placid Galvin, who then rode the fastest laps of the race, chasing Andrew down to finish second.

Poor Tennisball's bike let him down this round, he said he lost front brakes but still gamely rode on rear brake alone until this became fruitless.

Peter Taplin & I again followed the black Teknic bikes. Rudi came through on me about 4 laps in but could not sustain the pace, & I closed him up, unfortunately just as he made a mistake through the esses.  This resulted in me running up the ripple strip at 90 degrees to the corner, braking (& swearing) frantically as I just brushed the back of his bike. Adrian went past me then, & later caught Rudi too as he faded with cramp, a problem he frequently struggles with.

I settled myself down & several laps later drafted by each of them. But I couldn't catch Peter, who rode a textbook race to finish 2 seconds ahead of me, though I was happy to turn in a personal best of 1m13.19s.

Adrian & Rudi were followed home by Matt Graham, this time local Tim Inkster lead the C graders, having dropped an astonishing 2.5 secs from the first qualifying session.