 Hi Guys,
I've been off sick since the Western Australian round with a bad dose of the flu, so I haven't had a chance to fill you in on that round. I'm actually off to Queensland this weekend for the 3rd round of the Formula Xtreme, and I've been trying to get rid of this bug with natural remedies & stuff that's not on the banned list. I feel like I'm getting over it now, but I've still got a pretty heavy cough - hopefully it won't affect me too much this weekend. Western Australia turned out to be a pretty good weekend for me. I finished up 2nd overall in the points, and I had my first Race win in an Australian Superbike Championship. That felt really good. The weather on the weekend in WA made the race day a bit of a lucky dip with set up and tyre choice. What made things harder was that the area near the track hadn't had any rain in 7 months, so that when it rained on Sunday, the track was super slippery, because it brought up all the oil and rubber that had been on the surface. All the same, everyone had to ride in it, so it was the same for all of us. I qualified in 5th position in the dry, which I wasn't totally happy about - being on the front row would have been nice. There were a couple of the local guys that had the track sorted out, and I guess they had a pretty good setup. Tony Rees pipped me for the front row spot by a zillionth of a second. In Race One, almost everyone had wets because it was raining steadily. I took a bit too long to get going. My first 6 laps were a bit slow, but towards the end I was lapping at almost the same pace as Tony was. Tony won the race by a good margin and I ended up 5th. Race Two was a bummer for me. The warm up lap was dry, and everyone was on slicks, but it started raining as we were lining up on the grid for the race. The race was red flagged & declared a wet race. This meant that whatever tyres we chose for this race we were stuck with - good or bad choice. I didn't have the best tyres for the race, and it definitely showed in the results, with me finishing in 10th spot. Race Three and I chose a different combination of tyres, and it happened to be a good choice. Most of the guys thought it would be a drying track & had picked intermediates, but I went with a wet set up. Luckily for me it rained a little bit on the warm up lap and I knew I had the right set up. I took off from the start and pretty much led all the way. I thought maybe that with a few laps to go that the guys with intermediates might catch me, but the rear wet that I had chosen was a hard one, and it stood up even when it dried out. I finished in first with a 17 second lead. I was really happy with that, especially after having such a bummer race in the one before. Tony looked to be my main threat in that race, because he had chosen an intermediate front & a slick rear. I think he knew as well as I did, if he didn't let me get away too much in the first few laps, then when it dried out, he'd have a better set up. Unfortunately he crashed behind me in the early stages of the race, so that was the finish of that race for him. He hardly ever crashes, so it was a bit unlucky for him. I just wanted to say that the meeting in WA was really well run. The people over there put in a big effort and really support the race day. They had organised promotions and all sorts of stuff. Good on you guys. It was a pleasure to race there, and I'll certainly be back again. Catch you all after Queensland.
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