Australian Superbike Championship Round 5 (Final) - Eastern Creek - Race 2

Russell Holland took the lead as the field exited turn one for the first time around Eastern Creek today but Josh Brookes was right on the tail of Holland as the young Sydney pair immediately pulled a few lengths on their pursuers with Brendan Clarke and Shannon Johnson the next in line.

Holland walked away from Brookes down the main straight to start lap two and held the advantage around the whole lap. Allerton got the better of Johnson for fourth place. The battle for win definitely looked to be a two horse race, Holland on the Kawasaki and Brookes on the Honda but at the middle stage of the race it looked as though Holland could maybe have the measure of Brookes as the pair circulated the Eastern Creek circuit a full second faster than anyone else on the track.

Brookes got under Holland in turn 12 at the end of lap four but the Kawasaki managed to take the lead down the straight in to turn one, the Kawasaki perhaps looking to have a little more motor than the Honda.

Brookes again got Holland and tried to take the inside line on to the main straight but Brookes and Holland came together as Holland held it tight, as was his prerogative, which meant the two had an unfortunate coming together and both went down fairly softly considering the speed and location of the fall.

This left Queensland's Brendan Clarke to inherit the lead but Glenn Allerton didn't let him hang on to it for long. Curtain was holding down third place with Wayne Maxwell and Shannon Johnson right on his tail. Clarke got through on Allerton early on the penultimate lap while the battle for third was also changing as Wayne Maxwell got Curtain and then a couple of corners later Johnson shuffled Curtain further back to 5th. Johnson then went on to get Maxwell for 3rd a few corners later.

As they got the last lap board Clarke was holding off Allerton and kept the advantage to the line. Shannon Johnson got home third with Wayne Maxwell fourth and Kevin Curtain getting fifth by one-thousandth of a second over Mark Aitchison.

The battle between Curtain and Clarke for the Championship will go down to the final race. Curtain still holds a reasonable points advantage heading in to this afternoons final race so wis likely to once again ride a little conservatively to ensure he wins his third Australian Supersport Championship. But Clarke is still in with a good chance of things go his way.

Joshua Brookes and Russell Holland were the stars of the race though with much more pace than any of the others, both getting down to 1-minute 35.3-second times before their unfortunate demise. Holland did not managed to rejoin the race but Brookes salvaged tenth place after picking his Honda up out of the grass and dusting himself off.