2003 SAASC - Round 4 - Queensland Raceway - Race 1

Due to delays on Saturday the first of the Superstock races was rescheduled for Sunday morning and near perfect racing conditions greeted competitors as they formed up on the grid for the opening bout.

Alex Cudlin had been on fire in every session. The Taree youngster is just one of the kids that those of us who have spent some years on the Aussie racing circuit have seen grow up from an enthusiastic supporter to a focussed young racer. Alex is of course the younger brother to Damian, who is now riding for Kawasaki in the German Supersport Championship and impressed many during a guest ride at a recent round of the World Endurance Championship. So Cudlin has a good bloodline to follow.

He has been hard at it this year against Ballarat's Leigh McKenzie, a graduate from the 250 Production ranks. Other good performers this year have been Melbourne's Tristan Culvenor along with Paul Martinello and Alex Tomassetti.

From the start line in this opening race it was Alex Tomassetti who got a blinder of a start but Alex Cudlin braved the turn one bumps the best to emerge as the race leader with Leigh McKenzie just behind. This had been the form all weekend as Cudlin and McKenzie had been the fastest riders all weekend. During practice and qualifying McKenzie had looked to have had some trouble getting his Suzuki to hook up off the turns while Cudlin's R6 looked to have been getting good drive.

In only a couple of laps it had quickly came down to a battle between Cudlin and McKenzie as their pursuers could not match the pace of the leading duo. Tomassetti, Whalen and Martinello were battling for third at this stage of the game before a gap back to McConnell in sixth.

MzKenzie and Cudlin continued to circulate in the flat 1-minute-18s while the best of the rest could only manage high 1-minute-19s. Then in the later stages of the race Cudlin and McKenzie started going even quicker to record a series of 1-minute-17s, a very serious pace on a standard 600 Superstock machine. Their pursuers also picked up the pace with Paul Martinello the best of the rest with a 1-minute-18.9 to take third place from Alex Tomassetti.

McKenzie made his move on the last lap and put a move on Cudlin around the back of the circuit to take the lead for the first time and held on for the win. A great ride and a great race with McKenzie extending his overall lead in the series to 41 points. A considerable margin in this tightly fought battle with only five races remaining for Cudlin to try and close that gap. This opening encounter of the weekend has definitely set the scene for a thrilling conclusion to this great new inclusion to the Australian Road Racing Series.

But it also spelt out that it would be a clear McKenzie-Cudlin battle all day as Paul Martinello in third place was nearly 14 seconds behind the leading duo which is an amazing gap over the course of a nine lap race.