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2005 Australian Superbike
Championship - Round One - Phillip Island Team Report - Fraser Motorcycles April 4th, 2005
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2005 Australian Superbike
Championship - Round One - Phillip Island Team Report - Fraser Motorcycles April 4th, 2005
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| Privateer shows signs of big
things to come in the 2005 Super Sport Championship. The Fraser Motorcycles Yamaha Team hit the ground running as they contest for the 2005 Australian Super Sport Championship. Rider Mark Aitchison was on the pace straight away as the 31 entrants took to the picturesque Phillip Is Circuit on Friday for qualifying. By the end of the 2 Qualifying sessions the front row was separated by only 0.136 of a second with pole position going to Josh Brookes ( Joe Rocket Honda ) Grid 2 Mark Aitchison ( Fraser Motorcycles Yamaha Team ) Grid 3 Jason O’Halloran ( Rocket Racing ) and the final place on the front row belonged to Adam Fergusson ( Joe Rocket Honda ). Races 1 & 2 were held on Saturday in fine warm conditions. Race 1 saw the Factory Honda of Josh Brookes lead from start to finish taking a comfortable 5.8 sec win over Team mates Adam Fergusson and Jason O’Halloran, 4th place went to the Factory Kawasaki Rider of Josh Waters with our rider Mark Aitchison rounding out the top 5. Race 2 was a different story, with a few minor changes made to the mapping and suspension Mark was able to run with the Factory Honda’s for the duration of the race but was unable to break up the Honda trio finishing in 4th 1 sec behind the victor Josh Brookes, followed by Adam Fergusson, and rounding out the top 3 was Jason O’Halloran. Race 3 was held Sunday morning and the weather conditions had deteriorated miserably over night, with strong winds gusts and showers blowing in, it was destined to play havoc with the Teams and their riders. Race 3 was one of those races where the track was initially wet, but due to the strong winds, the track was drying fast, after a short but frustrating delay which saw people swapping from wet tyres to dry tyres, the final race of the weekend was underway, the leading bunch had grown to 5 made up of 2 Honda’s, and 3 Yamaha’s, Mark was sitting in 5th. The track was still wet in different areas so caution and precision was required when overtaking, Mark slipped up to 4th passing Jarradd Curran ( MSC Products Yamaha R6 ) and started to put pressure on the Yamaha Racing Team Rider Robbie Baird, Mark sat there behind Baird for a couple of laps until Baird made a mistake going into the tight turn number 10, commonly known as MG which allowed Mark to move to 3rd just behind the leaders, but as the trio passed through turn 11 a back marker on the previous lap had crashed, and fluid had leaked from his bike onto the track, Brookes nearly crashed as his front wheel passed through the fluid but managed to save it, Mark unfortunately passed through the fluid as well and was not as lucky as Brookes crashing out while in 3rd position. The Fraser Motorcycles Yamaha Team come away from the weekend pleased with the out come “even though we had a crash in race 3 we are happy with the way the weekend has gone.” Commented Marty Dowd. Marty went on to say “Mark has shown that he can run at the front, and it is a credit to him, he has adapted very quickly to the Yamaha and the Dunlop Tyres and this being only his 2nd time on the 2005 R6 he is sure to step onto the podium sooner rather than latter.” |
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