Honda young gun and privateer rider Russell Holland has taken an emphatic career-first round win at South Australia’s Mallala Motorsport Park at the third round of the YMF Loan Australian Superbike Championship today.

The 22-year-old rode his Robern Racing Honda CBR to victory courtesy of a maiden race win and second placing, giving him a one point edge over second spot on the podium.

Holland barely put a foot wrong in his campaign for overall honours, and upstaged each and every factory backed team on his way to the chequered flag.

The New South Wales based rider was understandably elated at the achievement, stating that the win was a goal he would have hoped to achieve by season end.

“It’s been a dream run this weekend, an all-round effort from the team, they gave me a great bike that was fast since it came out of the truck,” said Holland.

“Though I didn’t qualify as high as I could have, it was the front row start (4th) that gave me the chance to take the lead early, and once I’d put a few bike-lengths between myself and second then it just kept getting better,” he said.

“We use a Pirelli tyre and had made a few setup changes across the weekend, and the overall package was really good on the racetrack.”

“The first race win really was a dream come true and I adapted pretty well to a change in conditions in the last race, it was a lot cooler but we kept the heat in the tyres before the restart.”

“We didn’t quite have the pace to catch Jamie (Stauffer) towards the end but still scored the round win by a point.”

Holland has now ‘stood’ on all three podium steps across the opening three rounds, with today’s victory complementing a 2nd placing at Eastern Creek in round one and 3rd place last weekend at Barbagallo in round two.

The points haul only slightly closes the gap (16 points) to runaway leader Jamie Stauffer, but if Holland’s form is anything to go by, the championship could come down to the final round to be decided.

The team will test at Queensland Raceway ahead of the next round in just under five weeks, with the entire Robern Racing squad determined to continue their winning ways.

Jamie Stauffer was unable to record a hat-trick of Superbike round wins, being denied the prize by just a point. Third in race one and first in race two took his total to 44 – Holland finished on 45.

An average start to the opening race shuffled Stauffer backwards in the pack, and the fightback proved a challenging task for the Dunlop-shod factory Yamaha pilot.

Stauffer answered with victory in the second race, and was optimistic at achieving the greater goal of maintaining his series lead.

“Today just wasn’t our day in the Superbikes, I didn’t get off to the best of starts and Russell had some serious pace aboard his Honda,” said Stauffer.

“The opportunity for the round win was still there and I had to ensure I gave myself every possible chance, but the points gap just got the better of me.”

“The Dunlop tyre package really came on strong for race day, the team did a great job with setup.”

Seasoned Superbike campaigner Adam Fergusson positioned his Joe Rocket Honda in the best possible place to attack the leaders should they have made an error, and second and third results respectively across the day’s races saw him claim third overall.

Krusty’s dominant showing at Mallala over season 2004 and 2005 was cut short, but he was still pleased with the result.

Dan Stauffer finished just shy of a podium finish for the day but the points haul did him a world of good, boosting him into 3rd overall in the championship.

2005 New Zealand Superbike Champion Andrew Stroud was a quiet achiever for the round, and finished a credible 5th overall. The privateer rider now has a string of top 10 finishes to his name sitting 5th in the championship and will look to build on the momentum as the series heads north.

It was a taxing weekend for top factory riders Shawn Giles and Shannon Johnson, with Giles not making the grid due to his injury and Johnson pulling up short of a valuable points result in race two with a rare mechanical failure.

Glenn Allerton also had a round to forget, crashing twice over the course of the meeting which affected both his Superbike and Supersport campaigns adversely.

In what is becoming a regular occurrence in the YMF Loan Australian Supersport Championship, Jamie Stauffer once again took the two race wins and overall round honours for his Yamaha Racing Team.

Adam Fergusson rode his factory Honda to second place in the 600cc class and Yamaha privateer Shaun Geronimi recorded his second consecutive round podium taking third. A number of the factory Supersport riders experienced difficulties throughout the day, highlighted by crashes from Glenn Allerton and Mark Aitchison.

The championship – riders, teams and officials alike – will now take a well earned break before returning to competition at Queensland Raceway in five weeks.