Australian Superbike Championship Round 5 (Final) - Eastern Creek - Race 1

A fog of heavy tension descended on Eastern Creek as Australia's best took to the grid for the opening race for the Superbikes at Eastern Creek this morning.

Daniel Stauffer got off the line well and led them in to turn one with Craig Coxhell right with him. Josh Brookes then put a great move up the inside of Curtain for third place at turn four, the Honda rider looking to be on a mission this weekend. Shawn Giles pushed Curtain back to 5th position as they started lap two after the reigning champion recovered from a poor start.

Daniel Stauffer continued to lead the way with Craig Coxhell a couple of lengths behind and starting to come under attack from Joshua Brookes and Shawn Giles.

Giles then used the power of the Suzuki and a good run on to the straight to push Brookes back to third place and close right on the tail of his young team-mate Craig Coxhell after setting a new lap record with a flat 1-minute 33-second lap.

Stauffer was maintaining a lead of a couple of bike lengths but then heard a loud bang from his bike down the main straight and at first he thought his machine had blown up and backed right off just in case the engine was going to decide to lock up and to also check his machine was not pumping oil on to the track.

Of course with all this going on Stauffer let his pursuers through. After taking it easy for a few laps Stauffer then got back in to it and caught his way back up the leaders in the closing laps.

While Stauffer was being cautious with his machine the new leading quartet broke away a little and were setting a cracking pace.

Giles looked to have the measure of Coxhell at some parts of the circuit but the youngster was still leading the way with 4 laps to run. But the race at this stage still looked to be possible for any of the leading four as they were still running virtually nose-to-tail around some parts of the circuit, but the PTR Suzuki horsepower still rules the roost when they hit the main straight.

Lapped traffic then started to become a factor and the riders were complaining yesterday of no blue flags but hopefully that is not the case today.

Brookes was looking for a way past Curtain while Daniel Stauffer had decided that in fact his machine was working correctly so put his head back down in an effort to join the fray and did exactly that when he re-broke the lap record by dipping in to the 1-minute 32-second bracket.

But Coxhell held on for the win, Giles 2nd, Curtain 3rd. An absolutely fantastic race with only 7-tenths covering the top four as they crossed the line. Daniel Stauffer with a new lap record for Eastern Creek, his mid-race problem was later found to be the result of a lambda sensor blowing out of the pipes. If not for that hiccup in the middle of the race it would seem as though Stauffer would have been looking good for the win.

With two races remaining in the championship Coxhell now has a 20 point lead over Giles, who in turn has 7 points over Kevin Curtain.