Clear and perfect skies greeted supermoto competitors on Saturday when they arrived to ready their machines for the second round of the 2003 Yamaha Australian Supermoto Championship at Wagga last weekend.

But on arrival at the track on Sunday morning the skies were looking very threatening. Then it started drizzling as the riders received their final instructions at the morning riders briefing. By conclusion of the riders meeting the rain really started pouring and looked to be settled in for the day.

The amount of water that fell had turned the dirt section of the layout in to a quagmire. As a result, the organisers chose to run the event only on the bitumen and to not include the tricky dirt section that had been built over the previous days.

Most riders had arrived with hand cut slicks or were cutting new slicks themselves with grooving tools on Sunday morning. But the arrival of the rain had those who had not brought full road race wets with them to frantically search for some suitable rubber, while others made do with cutting road tyres in preparation for the days racing.

S1 Race 1

In the premier S1 class it was Mark Avard who shot straight to the front in the first race with Graham Cheney right behind him. Greg Moss had jumped the start which forced him in to the pits for a 5-second stop-go penalty. But the factory KTM rider bounced back to put in some smooth 39 second laps in the very wet conditions to move past Stuart Bennett for third place.

Moss then rounded up Graham Cheney to move in to second and started closing on Avard, but he ran out of laps and had to settle for second place. Husaberg’s Mark Avard took the win by two seconds while Cheney got third.

S2 Race 1

Then the 450cc S2 boys took to the track and Team Subways Adam Altham shot straight to the lead while Scotti Roots remounted after a lap one fall. Mark Willis got a bad start but made good progress through the back section to start closing on Altham.

Steven Fisher had been using the first laps to get a feel for the extremely wet conditions before putting his head down and closing on Mark Willis for second place. Lapped traffic also became a factor, Altham did well to negotiate the traffic and set the fastest lap of the race on lap 5 with a 40.6 second time.

Altham took a good win by six seconds while Steve Fisher got Mark Willis for second place on the run to the chequered flag. Kent Nielsen, Simon Thomas and Jay Normoyle had some good battles and came home with 4th, 5th and 6th places in that order.

S1 Race 2

The rain had stopped falling when the S1 riders took to the grid for their second race of the day. This time Mark Avard got off to a bad start while unbelievably Greg Moss jumped the start once again. He had to endure the same 5-second sop-go penalty after leading the race for the first few laps.

Stuart Bennett had got a great start to follow Moss around until Avard rounded him up and then took the lead when Moss entered the pits for his penalty. Bennett then came under attack from Graham Cheney in a great battle for second place.

As the rain started falling again Cheney moved past Bennett and started to threaten Avard for the lead.

Greg Moss had shown great speed to recover from his stop-go penalty to move up to 4th and had started closing on the leaders before he had a small off which would normally would have lost him little time, but he just could not get the big KTM to fire in to life so failed to finish. Things were just not meant to be for Moss it seemed.

Avard took the win from Cheney and Bennett in what was one of the closest races of the day.

S2 Race 2

In the second S2 race Steven Fisher was again running road race wets and riding in a smooth and flowing road race style, while Mark Willis was really sliding his CRF in to the fast turns.

Adam Altham got to the lead and after a brief battle with Willis and Fisher he managed to pull some ground. Fisher eventually got the better of Willis and pulled some ground.

Fisher nearly got the win but instead had to settle for another second place behind Altham. This time the gap was only a bike length, Mark Willis came home third two seconds adrift.

Scotti Roots, Kent Nielsen, Jay Normoyle and Andy Fisher battled for position all race and scored 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th respectively.

S1 Race 3

Graham Cheney got away to a great start with Stuart Bennett right with him in the third S3 while Mark Avard followed. Moss recovered from a shocker of a start to work his way through the field and started challenging Mark Avard for second place while Graham Cheney had managed to escape a little out in front.

Moss set the fastest lap of the race on lap 8 of the ten lap race and really started to threaten.

In a stark contrast, Moss was riding smooth and flowing while Mark Avard was executing his trademark long sideways slides in the entry to the fast turn one.

The Wagga track made passing difficult and this seemed to frustrate Mossy a little. He tried to make a passing move on Avard by taking an inside line that wasn't really there which resulted in Moss hitting Avard on the entry to a tight left-hander which brought both riders down. No fisticuffs were exchanged though as both riders acted professionally and just got back on to their bikes to rejoin the race.

This fall lost Avard and Moss a few positions but they quickly worked their way back through Bennett, Lafforgue and Selleck to make it back up to 2nd and 3rd respectively.

Graham Cheney took a great win from Avard with Moss coming home 3rd.

Stuart Bennett, Anton Lafforgue and Nick Selleck had their own hefty battle for 4th place with Bennett getting the better of them to take that spot.

Moss was the fastest man on the circuit with a best lap of 40.7 seconds while Avard was the next fastest with a 41.1.

S2 Race 3

Mark Willis had been having major trouble getting any drive off the turns with his cut slicks in the earlier races. But the ex 500cc World Road Race Grand Prix competitor got his hands on an intermediate for race 3 and got a great start from Steven Fisher, Roots 3rd and Altham 4th.

Altham had the hammer and down and was on a charge until he had a big moment coming on to the main straight, he just managed to save it by digging his foot in to the deck but the mistake did lose him some ground on the leaders. Scotti Roots had a fall but remounted after losing a few positions, he also came together with Adam Altham which left Altham without a front brake lever for the remainder of the race.

Mark Willis and Steve Fisher pulled away a little to make it a clear battle for the win between the two Honda riders.

Fisher eventually got the advantage and took the win from Willis by the narrowest of margins. Both riders were more than half a second lap quicker than the best of the rest in this third race.

Coming home in third place, some 15 seconds down on Fisher and Willis, was Kent Nielsen with Altham coming home 4th.

S1 Race 4

Stuart Bennett got a great start once again in the final S1 race from Greg Moss and Mark Avard as the trio led the pack around for the first lap on what was by now a fairly dry track.

In these conditions Moss quickly sprinted to the front and was unchallenged during the whole race to eventually take the win by 8 seconds over Mark Avard.

Overall Mark Avard took the round win at Wagga and extended his S1 championship lead to 27 points over Graham Cheney.

Stuart Bennett is third in the overall standings, only two points behind Cheney. Anton Lafforgue and Nick Selleck hold down fourth and fifth respectively in the S1 Championship.

S2 Race 4

Mark Willis got a great start in the final S2 race for the day and the race battle for the win quickly settled down to a 3-way dice between Willis, Fisher and Altham.

A little further behind the leaders a great battle was being waged for 4th place between Normoyle, Nielsen and Thomas. Normoyle eventually won that war to record his best finish of the day after consistent performances in the other races.

Willis took the win from Steve Fisher with Adam Altham coming home a few bike lengths behind in third.

Fisher’s second place in the final race was enough to wrap up the S2 round win with 91 points from Altham on 88 and Willis on 87.

But thanks to a complete domination at round one of the series Willis still leads the S2 Championship with 187 points from Adam Altham on 168 points.

Kent Nielsen and Josh Houwen once again scored well through a great run of consistency and hold down third and fourth in the overall championship standings.

Steven Fisher may have won at Wagga but the Ballina rider had not scored well at the opening round of the championship which meant his victory at Wagga only moved him up to 5th overall in the championship. But Fisher is now sure to be fired up for the remaining rounds of this inaugural Australian Supermoto Championship.

Support Events

Mark Willis won the Mr Motard Cup event which was the final race of the day where the top riders from both classes can compete together in the one event. Here he got the better of Mark Avard and Adam Altham.

Brad Gow totally dominated the support events from Dean Meuleman and Scott Cogan. Gow's lap times would have made him an easy top ten finisher in the S2 class on his WR450F.

Summary

Some great racing was enjoyed by the riders at Wagga and the event had received plenty of press in both newspapers and on television in the lead up to day. However the dreadful weather kept many people at home. Nonetheless it was a successful day and Australian Supermoto is likely to include Wagga Wagga on the soon to be announced 2004 Championship calendar.

The event promoter, Kevin Williams, was nonetheless buoyant after watching the great racing on display at Wagga.

“I think it was a pretty good day overall but unfortunately we broke the drought at Wagga which made it hard to get a good crowd.

“We did everything we could to promote this event but when it starts bucketing down all morning you do yourself out of a crowd, but surely we will have to get some good weather at a round eventually.

“But the riders put on a great show for those spectators that did brave the elements.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t use the dirt section but a lot of the motocross riders did quite well in the wet.

“I am pretty happy with the day considering the weather, but everything ran well and there was some very good racing so it still turned out well.

“The club here did a great job and having Rob Jones here to do a bit of stunt work added to the spectacle. Hopefully we can get some good weather in Queensland for the end of the month so we can have a great event up there.”

Rider Quotes

Steven Fisher – Honda – “I rode on full wets all day today which seemed to be the right way to go but in the last race it was mainly dry which made it a bit hard. Of course with the track being all bitumen today it made things easier for me. I had a coming together with Altham in the second race and in the last race he t—boned me, he was getting a bit desperate out there but all in all it was a good day and great to come out on top.”

Mark Willis – Honda – “We had a little bit of a problem with the tyres today with a cut slick in the first races but obviously the compound was just too hard and we couldn’t get it to flex or dispel the water so I really had to ride hard just to come third in those races and I was a bit dejected with that. Then when we got the purpose built intermediate for the final races and that actually gave me some drive and made things a whole lot easier. I should have taken the win in race 3 but handed it over through a mistake when I got out on a bit of shiny stuff and slid the front away with a couple of corners left so I couldn’t get on the throttle which allowed Steven to get through and take the win. The biggest thing today was starts as it was pretty hard to pass and I got a good start in the final race which made things easier so we could come home with a win.”

Mark Avard – Husaberg – “It was a pity that Greg (Moss) had those problems with the starts. The tyre choices came down to a lot of fun but I went on wets for the first three races and switched to a cut slick on the rear with a wet on the front for the last race but Greg got going and I just couldn’t catch him in that last one as every time I tried I lost the front a couple of times and had to settle for 2nd. But getting the win overall was good, it was a shame we couldn’t have the dirt section as that would have topped it off but you can’t help that.”

Stuart Bennett – KTM - “We have just been running cut slicks today which made things hard, and to combine with that I had never even rode a road bike in the wet so this was all totally new to me today. But this is a fun thing to me and I still managed to have some fun so that was good. The last race was a bit of a mess when I tried to stick it under Cheney on the last lap but went wide and lost a couple of places which was not got a great way to end the day but you get that.”

Greg Moss – KTM - “I was not used to waiting for the orange light to go off and just kept going when it came on from the red. In the third race I made a wrong tyre choice by going with a slick and then halfway through the race it started raining which made things hard and then I lost the rear. In that second race I just couldn’t get the beast going again so had to retire. Six months without racing didn’t really help me today as I am a little out of practice but we got it together in the last race, pity we couldn’t do the same in all of them.”

Danny Ham – Suzuki – “It was just a road race today I guess with the lack of a dirt section but I learnt a lot today and it was something different for me. Next time I will have a bit of experience so that should be better and of course we have to have some dirt is what we need for sure."

The next round of the Australian Supermoto Championship is to be staged at Queensland's Stanthorpe Raceway on June 29.