The cogs fall into place with final preparations for 2006 Australian Superbike season to get underway

After a somewhat disappointing year with Kawasaki in 2005 Jamie Stauffer has returned to the Yamaha fold for 2006. The revived partnership was celebrated in fine style at Phillip Island over the World Superbike weekend with the Novocastrian emerging victorious in every Australian Superbike and Supersport race for a total of six wins from six starts.

In the opening Superbike race Stauffer (Team Yamaha) led home the Joe Rocket Honda pairing of Adam Fergusson and Glenn Allerton. Team Suzuki’s Shawn Giles also played a big part in the race and led the field away before coming under attack from Stauffer, Fergusson and Allerton on the opening lap with numerous changes of positions keeping the large crowd on their toes. New in the Honda camp for 2006 Allerton showed he has immediately come to grips with the Fireblade by stealing the lead at the halfway point of the race before team-mate Adam Fergusson then took his turn at the front. Stauffer had the answers in the final laps though and forced his way to the front. He then put in some scorching 1-minute 35-second laptimes on the final two laps to break away and secure the win by a full second.

I haven’t missed a single Australian Superbike race since 1999 but that first encounter of the weekend went down in my memory banks as one of the most exciting ever. The fact that it was then backed up with another thriller later that afternoon had onlookers not familiar with Aussie Superbike action amazed. Only 6-tenths of a second covered the top five place-getters at the chequered flag! This time around Stauffer stole victory from Allerton on the line by 9-hundredths of a second with Giles a similarly tiny distance further behind to make it one of the closest podium finishes in history.

With racing this close there is always a good chance of men and machines sliding down the road. That’s exactly what happened in the final Superbike bout when in separate incidents Robert Bugden (Team Suzuki), Giles and Fergusson all ended up either in the kitty litter or sliding on the grass. Left to take the battle to Stauffer was Allerton and Russell Holland (Honda) but they had no answer for the Yamaha man who took victory by four seconds to cap off an amazing weekend for the 26 year old.

Making those wins even more amazing was that earlier in the day Stauffer had also completed a clean sweep of the Australian Supersport races on Yamaha’s YZF-R6 to give the all new model a sensational race debut on Australian soil.

While Stauffer utilised the 2006 incarnation of the R6 for the Supersport class, in Superbike he raced a 2005 model YZF-R1 as the team continues to get their new 2006 YZF-R1 SP machines fully race prepared in readiness for the opening round of the 2006 Australian Superbike Championship at Eastern Creek (NSW) on April 9.

Competitors then have a seven week break before heading west for round two at Wanneroo Raceway (WA) on May 28.

Pictorials from Phillip Island - Gallery A - Gallery B - Gallery C - Gallery D - Gallery E - Gallery F - Gallery G - Gallery H