First qualifying went well with me getting used to the bike. Using some old tyres I set a time of 1:42, which I was pretty happy with, but left me 3rd on the grid behind Andy Keyte and Ben Lake. For my first weekend on a Superbike and having never ridden at Phillip Island before, I was learning the track with every lap.

For the 2nd Qualifying session the team and I decided to throw a new rear tyre on to have a real good shot at pole. With some good clean laps I managed to get down to a 1:40.7 with 2 laps to go, which would have seen me still only qualify 3rd. Without putting in any extra effort, somehow I pulled off a 1:40.3 on my last lap of qualifying. When I returned to the pit everyone was cheering so I knew I'd got pole.

I struggled for the rest of the afternoon with the bike trying to shake me off coming onto the main straight. This forced me to have to back off and only use 80% throttle down the chute. This caused me to drop 2 seconds a lap in my 2 heat races and end up in 4th and 5th. We couldn't work out what was wrong. Looking at the Motec data logging system we found nothing wrong with the bike, so I knew it had to be myself and at the time, put it down to fatigue.

Sunday came and I still had the same problem in warm-up, so the team put softer springs in the front forks to try and stop it. However in the over 400 final the same thing happened, so I struggled and rode round finishing 5th. For the Superbike final I tried to relax more on the bike. I started from pole and got a reasonably good start, which was another thing I was struggling with over the weekend, as the Superbike was a lot different than my 250 proddie to get of the line. For the first 3 laps the bike was still shaking down the straight and I was struggling in 4th. However the next lap down the straight I sorted the problem! For most of the weekend I was sitting too far up the front of the bike going down the straight and the wind was catching me and making the front light, hence the head shakes. I realised I had to get my body right back up against the seat pad so I could tuck in more and get out of the wind. With the bike now stable in a straight line, I was on a mission to catch Ben and Andy, so I put in some hard laps. I soon caught up to the back of them and slowly tried to pick them off. By the last lap I was sitting in 2nd when Ben got thrown out of the seat around turn 2, which helped me to get right on the back of him. Going into MG Corner for the last time, I passed him under brakes and got a pretty good drive out of it. Coming onto the straight however was not the best, which gave Ben the run on me and he slipstreamed me to the line to take the win.

Andy Keyte knocked me off pole, but I wasn't real worried as a front row start is all you need. I got away well and after the first lap, I passed Andy and went into 2nd and set out to catch Ben who'd already done a bit of a runner. Once I had caught him I sat behind him and was out braking him on the outside going into MG corner every lap, so he couldn't see what I was planning. I passed Ben with about 3 laps to go going into turn 1 but into turn 2 I hit a false neutral, which meant then I had to shift up a gear into fourth so the engine didn't lock up. This wrecked my run out of the turn and Ben passed me going up to turn 3. But as I exited turn 2 I saw a yellow flag, which continued into turn 3. This meant that Ben had passed me under yellow, which then gave him a 5 second penalty. I still stayed on him though because I wanted to win the race fair and square. Coming round to get the last lap board I knew I was going to make my move at MG, so I sat right behind him the whole lap. I made sure I got a good run out of Siberia and was right on him going up to Lukey Heights. We went round a slower rider through Lukey, which meant we were on the inside for MG. I thought I had no chance but Ben left about a metre and a half gap up the inside as he moved out little wider to enter the corner, so I braked a fraction later than him and stuck myself up the inside. This time I got a good run out of 11 and 12 to just stay far enough in front of him to beat the slipstream and take the win. With the win I managed a lap time of 139.5, my fastest time around the island for the weekend.

I would like to thank Roberts Racing, Jani King and Rob Porker for their support on the weekend. I also need to thank Jeff Winzer and Chris Henderson for setting up my bikes and Nick Henderson for keeping me focused on the job.

Next year I have secured a Superbike ride for myself and can't wait to get out there and try and mix it with the big boys!

Late Braking News

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