Plenty of prizes up for grabs at Eastern Creek this weekend

The final round of the 2002 Yamaha Xtreme Tri-State will be staged at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway this weekend. Free practice is on today (Friday), for all competitors followed by short qualifying sessions tomorrow morning (Saturday), before racing gets underway in the afternoon with a nine-race programme. Of course Sunday is the major day for the action, with another 16 races and lunchtime burnout competition.

A total of 19, that's right, 19 classes within the seven different race categories will take to the track. Only four of those classes were won at the previous Oran Park round which leaves 15 classes still to be won.

Craig McMartin has already taken out the Pro-Twin competition, Craig Trinder the NakedBikes; Rob Hermans the Streetfighters and Daryl Vander Graaf has wrapped up the BEARS class.

The closest category is the Aprilia Challenge. Entry numbers have been down this year in 250-production racing Australia wide, but there has not been any shortage of on track action as a consequence. Only eight points separate three riders! John Allen leads the way but will have his work cut out for him if he is to hold off challenges from Dustin Goldsmith and Josh Forster. A major prize is also on offer for the top finishing 'C' or 'D' grade rider in the Aprilia class, David Anthony is the favourite to take that one, but Chris Quinn could cause an upset.

Alistair Maxwell has been determined to score himself a new Yamaha YZ450F by winning the Formula Oz competition. Queensland's John Allen has got the better of Alistair at times, putting his NSR500V Grand Prix machine to good use against Alistair's aging Kawasaki ZX-7RR. The 250 GP class is incorporated with the Formula Oz races and here Darren Parkinson holds the advantage over Matt Tingate.

Aiming to put a cat among the pigeons in the FX races is three-time American SuperBike Champion Mat Mladin. The Camden rider will be at the controls of a privately prepared Suzuki GSX-R 1000 machine. Mladin will be hoping to split the traditional Yamaha party at the front of the pack.

Also out to try and spoil the Yamaha party will be 19-year-old Joshua Brookes. The Bringelly local holds the current Eastern Creek lap record after a scintillating ride on the Fireblade at Eastern Creek last year. On recent form Josh would not look likely to be right at the front of the pack this weekend, but you can never count him out.

Multiple-time FX champion Kevin Curtain misses out on the final round of the World SuperSport Championship this weekend to try and secure his fourth FX title. “I’m not going to get out there and win every race as I normally try and do, instead I’ll be sitting in behind who I have to, to win the series,” said Curtain. “There’s no point in me going out hard and trying to win, when the first priority is to win the title. If I can secure that early on, then that will allow me to go out and try and win.”

Out to try and stop Curtain doing exactly that will be reigning FX champion Robbie Baird. The Queenslander dominated the competition during the early rounds this year but a bad run of luck sees him heading in to the final under a 38-point deficit to Curtain.

“I’m just going to try my best and see where we end up at the end of the day, whether it’s first or second,” said Baird. “It would be nice to make it two consecutive titles, but it is still a good result for Yamaha, Dunlop and all of our other supporters if we can finish with a one-two. I’m going to have to do it from the front. Eastern Creek is a hard place to make a pass on as it is a flowing style of a circuit, so a lot will depend on how well we do during qualifying.”

The third member of the Radar’s Team Yamaha is Craig Coxhell. The affable young Shepparton rider has had a troubled year but his luck seems to have taken a slight turn for the better at recent rounds.

“My goal for this weekend is to finish ahead of the Stauffer brothers so that I can get up to third in the series, and give the team a clean sweep of top three placings,” said Coxhell. “I finished the last meeting at Oran Park on a high, so I hope to carry that through to this weekend and get the results I’ve been looking for. We found a few things with the bike at Oran Park that made it feel a lot better for me. I’m confident that I can put it all together at the Creek.”

The Bio-Magnetics Team made a huge splash at round one this year with a thoroughly professional look and turnout. After some early setbacks, including a major fire which destroyed most of their equipment, the team has been gathering momentum over the previous rounds in the build up to this weekend’s final. At the penultimate Oran Park round the Stauffer duo took three first places and a trio of second places to dominate the event. A trend they wish to continue at Eastern Creek this weekend.

"I want to try a few different things with the rear suspension set-up during practice and qualifying, we have been running a little wide in the faster corners so we we will try a few different things to try and sort that out. I think we will see some really fast times this weekend, even 1-minute-32-second laps could be on the cards if everything works well," commented Jamie Stauffer.

In the fight for A-grade privateer honours will be Queensland’s Robert Bugden, who holds a significant 63-point lead over Shepparton’s Nick Henderson. Brendan McIntyre heads the ‘B’ Grade privateer points chase over Ric Pobjoy. Glenn Warlond and Michael Wright will take the battle for top placed ‘C’&’D’ Grader down to the wire, with Warlond holding a 49-point advantage over his arch rival.

Jamie Stauffer and Kevin Curtain are not restricting their fairing bashing encounters to the FX category, as the Newcastle riders are currently 1-2 in the SuperSport competition. Curtain holds a 77-point lead though, so Jamie will have his work cut out for him if he is to threaten Curtain for that prized #1 SuperSport plate.

Another threat in the mix is Russell Holland who has piloted his Pirelli shod GSX-R Suzuki to some thrilling rides this year. Reece Bancell returns to the track after a lack-of-funds induced break in his racing activities. The Hornsby teenager will try to regain some lost ground in the A & B grade privateer battle, where Victoria’s Cameron Donald and Brent George currently hold the advantage. The competition will be fierce as the top finishing A or B grade privateer scores an awesome new YZ450F Yamaha. Another YZ450F is up for grabs for the C & D grade privateers, Lindsay Brown was the front-runner for the prize but a bad fall at Oran Park sidelines the rider from the final round. This leaves Derryn Simmons and Jason Cartledge to fight it out for the YZ.

Eastern Creek is the place to see it all unfold this weekend.