2003 SAASC - Round 4 - Queensland Raceway - Race 2

Coxhell is normally fantastic off the start line but so far today that skill has evaded him as he got a shocker in the initial start in race one and also in the re-start. No doubt that thought would have been going through his mind as he waited for the red light to go out while revving his Suzuki on the start-line. But this time he did get away cleanly, not as clean as Kevin Curtain though as he led the field through the first turns once again, however this time Coxhell was right in behind him, Giles right on his tail while Stauffer had got a bad start once again.

Coxhell got Curtain down the straight as they commenced lap 2 but something happened in turn 1, maybe Curtain touched the back of Coxhell which sent Curtain down, while Coxhell ran off the track and lost a lot of places. Curtain was left in the dirt with no hope of gaining any points from this race while Coxhell fought his way back through a swag of riders to be back up to 2nd place by the end of lap 3.

Craig Coxhell then simply walked past McCarthy and Brookes and pulled away from them with ease, but Giles has escaped to the tune of over 3 seconds.

Coxhell took 4-tenths out of Giles on lap 5 but the gap was still a considerable 2.7 seconds. Castrol Honda team-mates Josh Brookes and Kirk McCarthy were having their own heated battle for 3rd place.

The race pace this time around not as fast as race 1 but still in the low 1-minute 11s. McCarthy and Brookes continued their battle for 3rd place which looked soon to become a 3-way battle as Daniel Stauffer closed on to the back of them.

Giles started suffering with tyre trouble on lap 8 allowing Coxhell to gain on him by nearly a full second that time around. Coxhell edged closer still on the next lap around to narrow the gap down to 1.6 seconds with 3 laps remaining.

Coxhell was on Giles' ducktail on lap 10 and took the lead at the end of that lap. They got the last lap board next time around as Coxhell stretched his lead to 1.2 seconds as Giles struggled with a rapidly failing rear tyre.

Coxhell took the win by 3.8 seconds as Giles struggled with no rear grip which caused him more than a few 'moments'. Kirk McCarthy got third from Stauffer while Josh Brookes had to settle for 5th.

Giles later remarked that at first he thought his clutch was slipping as he was revving hard but not accelerating hard. Eventually he realised that was not the case and that his rear tyre had cried enough and given up the ghost.