Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship - Round 5 (Final) - Eastern Creek

A rejuvenated Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship has provided racing fans with endless thrills and spills this year. But the best is yet to come… The scene is set for the biggest domestic road racing event of the year next weekend (August 29/30/31) when Australia’s best descend on Eastern Creek to battle for championship honours.

Curtain, Coxhell, Giles, Stauffer, Brookes and McCarthy will all battle for line honours at Eastern Creek on their 1,000cc production based Superbikes but the outright championship win looks set to be a close dice between Craig Coxhell, Shawn Giles and Kevin Curtain.

20 year old Coxhell hails from the country Victorian town of Shepparton and joined Team Suzuki this year after spending his teenage years riding for Yamaha. Consistency has been the key to Coxhell’s success this year and that fact, combined with his obvious speed, is what has him holding a commanding position heading in to next weekend’s final shootout. “I think I’m more excited about this round than I have ever been before in the lead up to a race meeting. I’m going to aim for consistency, but I also have to try and take a win early on to cement my lead, it is all about ensuring that I come away with the most points so I can win the Championship.

“But we will have to take a step by step approach to the weekend. My first aim will be to ensure I get on the front row, then I have to get a good start and then I have to score some good results. If that all comes together then I will win the championship, but you can’t take anything for granted in racing so it will be a nail biter for sure.”

Both Coxhell and his Suzuki team-mate, reigning three-time Australian Superbike Champion Shawn Giles, have failed to finish on two occasions this year out of the 12 bouts thus far. Coxhell has taken more points than Giles on seven of those twelve occasions but holds only a slender 15 point lead over his more experienced team-mate. But Giles did have an edge over Coxhell at the previous Queensland round and is eager to overhaul Coxhell at Eastern Creek.

Newcastle’s Kevin Curtain (Yamaha) has only finished seven races this year, but remarkably every time he has finished he has been victorious. It is this incredible run of wins which sees Curtain only four points shy of Giles, and also goes to show that the fastest man in Australian racing this year has been Kevin Curtain. “If not for those few setbacks this year things at the top of the points table might be looking a little bit different. But all the pressure will be on Craig, while there is little pressure on myself and the Nikon Yamaha Team, so I am just going in to it the same as any other race, in a fairly relaxed mood. But there are only 19 points in it, and you never know what may happen, so it is far from over and if things go my way, we could come out on top.”

Another rider who has been the fastest man on the track at times this year is Curtain’s team-mate Daniel Stauffer. Like Curtain, Stauffer also hails from Newcastle, so Eastern Creek is as close as it gets to being a home round for the 26 year old, and he has always been very fast at the 3.43km Sydney circuit. “I’m looking forward to the weekend to try and end the season on a positive level. Of course I am a little disappointed that the championship is out of my reach but I will just go out there and aim for the best result I can and hopefully taking away some good results which will enable me to look to next year with plenty of confidence.”

The next battle in the ranks is for fifth place and it is likely to be fought out by a quartet of Honda riders. Sydney 20-year-old Joshua Brookes has recorded some incredible performances at Eastern Creek in previous years and will be eager to ensure that he finishes the year as the top Honda man. “I have been on an upward progression in recent rounds and getting a little closer to the front bit by bit, and Eastern Creek has always been a happy hunting ground for me. So I hope for big things there for sure to ensure I can end the season on a high note. I am obviously a bit disappointed with the position we find ourselves in as to the points table, but I think it is important that we finish on a positive note so hopefully we can take good things from that to boost the team towards a good performance at the GP support events in October.”

While Honda currently holds the #1 plate in Supersport it has been 7 years since they won the premier Superbike category. And that #1 plate holder was in fact current Honda rider Kirk McCarthy who with Josh Brookes forms the factory Honda squad. McCarthy is always a threat and is more than capable of pulling out an upset at Eastern Creek.

Due to injuries and other dramas this year both Brookes and McCarthy have missed a round each which means that in fact the top scoring Honda effort thus far this year is Brown Gouge Nova Honda. The young Victorian duo of Scott Charlton and Brent George currently hold down fifth and sixth places on the points table and have a reasonable gap over the factory Honda riders thanks to a great run of consistency. The Shell backed duo will fight it out between themselves for top privateer honours.

It seems almost certain that Honda will relinquish the #1 plate in Australian Supersport to the Nikon Yamaha camp with either Kevin Curtain or Brendan Clarke fighting it out for the individual honour of being named Australian Supersport Champion. Young Clarke has yet to win his first Australian Championship but his 36-year-old team-mate has twice won the Australian Supersport Championship, once with Kawasaki (1996) and once with Yamaha (2000).

But 19-year-old Clarke is on a roll after taking three victories over Curtain at the recent Queensland round to put him on a high heading to the championship decider next weekend, “I’m looking forward to the weekend for sure, we have a good set-up for Eastern Creek so it will just be a matter of fine tuning during the practice sessions. If it is dry it will be close racing for sure, and with a bit of luck I will finish in front of Kevin, but what I really need is to win and for another bike to get in between us so I can make up the ground on the points table to challenge Kevin for the championship win. But that won’t be easy and the pace will be hot, if the track conditions are ideal it is possible that we might even dip in to the 1-minute-34-second bracket, as both Kevin and myself have recorded times as low as 1-minute-35.2 there earlier this year, and that was on well used tyres.”

While the Yamaha men are likely to be the ones battling for the major prize, Honda’s Shannon Johnson will be trying to hold on to third position, a spot that was looking completely safe, until the previous round where his team-mate Josh Brookes closed to within striking distance after recording two fourth places and a second place at the flat 3km Queensland layout. Both riders are formidable pilots with Johnson the current Australian Supersport Champion, and Josh Brookes the 2001 series winner.

The two Grand Prix classes that race with the Shell Series have already had their championship winners decided. Western Australia’s Peter Taplin has an unassailable lead in the 250 GP Championship, while 16-year-old Mildura rider Joshua Waters has already taken out the 125 GP crown. The race for second place in 250 Grand Prix will be a frenetic four-way battle between Brett Underwood (QLD), Geoff Hardcastle (VIC), Scott Crombie (VIC) and Mark Rowling (NSW).

Second place is also still up for grabs in 125 Grand Prix, however more than a little controversy surrounds current second place holder Jason O’Halloran. New South Wales law prevents O’Halloran from riding due to the fact he is 15 years old, even though in every other state of Australia this is permitted and O’Halloran has ridden in all the previous round of the championship and has also been offered a wildcard ride at the SKYY Vodka Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island in October. O’Halloran’s team have been lobbying the New South Wales Minister for Sport & Recreation for an exemption for nearly 18 months over the issue but at this late stage of the game they are yet to hand down a decision on the matter. If O’Halloran is allowed to race, he will defend his second place in the 125 Championship against 2001 Australian 250 Production Champion Mick Kelly. If the worst happens and the New South Wales Government prevents O’Halloran from racing he will possibly be overtaken by as many as three riders, possibly pushing back his final championship position to fifth, a far cry from the stellar second position he is likely to take if he is allowed to race. Another good up and coming rider to miss out at Eastern Creek through this ridiculous ruling is young Queenslander Matt Kuhne. (NB: A positive decision later came come down from the minister on Friday afternoon).

The Lazer Helmets sponsored 250 Production Championship is currently led by Taree’s Caleb Stalder who has been victorious on seven out of the 11 races held this year. The 21 year old has a clear 39-point lead over Canungra 16 year old Gareth Jones. Victorian competitors Troy Elliott and Brent Sidwell could challenge Jones for second position if things go their way at Eastern Creek.

But Stalder is not the only young star emerging from Taree this year. Alex Cudlin turned 17 earlier this month and is currently challenging Ballarat’s Leigh McKenzie for outright honours in the Superstock category. This exciting new class pits new ‘C’ and ‘D’ grade riders against each other on standard 600cc machines. Both Cudlin and McKenzie have taken five wins each from the eleven races thus far this season however McKenzie has never failed to score points in any race this year while Cudlin has failed to finish on two occasions. This gives McKenzie a clear 30-point advantage heading in to this final round but Eastern Creek is as close as it gets to home territory for Cudlin and he will be eager to do everything he can to try and overhaul that gap, but he has his work cut out for him given McKenzie’s glowing record of consistency. Cudlin did win the previous Queensland round but even if Cudlin wins all three races at Eastern Creek, McKenzie only needs to finish third in each race to make the title his. Those who think the name Cudlin is familiar will be thinking of Damian Cudlin, Alex's brother, who currently race for Kawasaki in German Supersport and is also riding for the Phase One World Endurance Team this weekend at the Oschersleben 24-Hour.

Sidecars have been a big part of the Shell Advance Series this year and fans of the three-wheeled wonders are in for a thrill next weekend. Shane Soutar has obtained special dispensation from Motorcycling Australia allowing him to bring his fire-breathing two-stroke 500cc World Sidecar specification machine out of retirement to shred some rubber around Eastern Creek Raceway. Many of the older spectators will remember Soutar’s famous speedway days where he won four Australian and Ten State Championships on the dirt before turning his hand to tarmac racing. He added another two Australian Championships to his resume in that discipline before taking on the best the world had to offer in the World Sidecar Championship. He survived a horrific accident in his first year of international competition which put him out of action for months, but he came back strong over the next two years and earned fifth overall in the 1999 World Sidecar Championship. A lack of sponsorship forced him to pull out of the world circuit early in 2000. Swinging for Soutar will be Sydney’s Jeff Rowe.

Soutar will not be eligible for points at the final round as his machine no longer complies with regulations for sidecar competition. But he will definitely give the Australian F1 Sidecar Championship leaders Neville Lush and Martin Scott something to think about. The South Australian pairing have a healthy lead in the race for the Championship but the battle for second place will be no holds barred. Western Australia’s Lindsay Fagan pairs with South Australian swinger Ash Voice to try and secure second position from the John Francis / Rowan Biram outfit, while the Victorian pairing of Steven Hutchinson and Darren Dewhurst will also threaten. The smaller F2 class is led by South Australia’s David Jones and John Cutting who will try and fend off the Jason and Brett James outfit to clinch the F2 Title. But they may have their work cut out for them; the James brothers were on fire at the previous Queensland round and took three wins from as many starts.

Apart from the national championship titles up for grabs this weekend, Suzuki riders are in with a chance of a very special prize. The Suzuki mounted privateer with the highest number of points in either the Shell Advance Australian Superbike or Supersport Championships will be selected to compete in France in the Worldwide GSX-R Cup for a share in a $10,000 U.S. prize pool. The 2003 Suzuki Worldwide GSX-R Cup will be held in conjunction with the World Superbike Round at France's famous Magny-Cours circuit on October 17-19 and all competitors will race identical Suzuki-provided GSX-R750's fitted with control tyres. Only three points separate the current top four Suzuki privateers in the running for the prize. Sydney’s David Butler leads the way with Robert Bugden hot on his heels.

All the action will unfold at Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway over the weekend of August 29/30/31.