2003 SAASC - Round 4 - Queensland Raceway - 250 GP / 250 Production

Peter Taplin has dominated the struggling 250 Grand Prix class all year and could lift the title with a good finish in this second 250 Grand prix race for the weekend.

But it was Mark Rowling who sat in pole position and hoped to put one over Taplin this weekend at Queensland Raceway. Taplin only started racing at 19 years of age and the motorcycle salesman has been a successful GP rider in both the 125 and 250 ranks. His long frame looks somewhat out of place on a tiny GP machine but Taplin is a racer who really enjoys the exacting nature of a lightweight GP machine and clearly favours them over their road based counterparts.

Unfortunately few share his view as the 250 GP ranks have rapidly dwindled this year with under ten riders taking part this weekend. The 250 Production class has been incorporated with the 250 GP races this year and is another class which looks to be heading down the gurgler. This is very unfortunate as this once huge class bulged at the seams with young talent but now often fails to draw more than ten riders to the grid.

Chris Wilkie was the early leader in this encounter as Taplin got a shocker off the line but it only took one and a half laps for Taplin to march to the front and start to streak away while a healthy battle started to unfold for second place, Rowling eventually getting the better of Wilkie and Underwood.

Taplin settled down to a race pace of 1-minute-15s which while the fastest on the track it is a full two seconds slower than Geronomi's 250 GP lap record around the 3km Queensland layout.

Brent Sidwell and Gareth Jones were having a tight battle for the lead in the 250 Production class.

Taplin backed off the pace in the closing laps and cruised home for another easy win and with that result became the 2003 Australian 250 Grand Prix Champion, the first Western Australian to do so since Alan Watts took out the same class in 1996.

Gareth Jones took the 250 Production win.