2009 6 Hour – race report

Clark’s crash was the most pivotal of a low total of six crashes for the full six hours of racing. Only half of those six triggered periods of safety car, and only three of the fallers were unable to continue. All but one, though, were at turn 7. Team AMCN, on the #19 GSX-R750, already handicapped by being lumped into the 1000cc Superstock class with R1’s, ZX-10R’s, GSX-R1000’s, and Fireblades, had to effect extensive repairs after Craig Macintyre lowsided, and the bike cartwheeled when it ran off the track. They lost a whopping 114 laps in repairs, had to prize the cooling fan off the exhaust headers during pitstops, and finished last, but they finished.

Team Rock Soild Security’s number 47 actually has meaning for the riders as all were born in 1962 making them…47! The team haven’t raced for over 10 years and came together especially for Oran Park’s send off. Qualifying 16th on their Yamaha R1 race bike come track bike come race bike, Jim Masri actually got a cracking start running as high as tenth and chasing 9th when on lap 25 the water pump failed covering him in boiling water through the kink at the end of the straight. Jim actually managed to hang on and not crash despite being in extreme discomfort. As if the day wasn’t hot enough already.

For a bike that Jim started preparing three weeks prior with help from friends, an engine rebuild by John from Mototech and the finer race bike prepping by Aitken’s, the team were heartbroken not to progress further. Hopefully it won’t be another ten years before we see the boys back out on the circuit racing.

Last Minute Racing’s #17 bike, and the #51 machine of Clubman Motorcycles, both R1’s were the others who DNF’d through crashes.

The adoption of Irish road racing’s idea of a motorcycle-mounted medic to access fallen riders by the trackside fast didn’t pan out; he crashed exiting turn 4 on his way to one of the fallers at turn 7 at the 1-hour mark and had to sit out the rest of the event.

Air temperatures in the natural bowl of the Oran Park site were nudging 40 degrees all day. On track, it would’ve been much hotter, making the race a real test of the racebikes and the racers. Oil was seen to be topped up on many a bike during pitstops. Accepting their trophy for 2nd place in the Production 1000cc class, Team Bikesmith’s Simon Thomas spoke of the team’s 2006 R1 temp gauge hovering around 115 degrees on the track. The Hog’s Breath Heroes team’s #35 carburetted R6, the joint-oldest bike in the field, soldiered on through the latter half of the race with a blown head gasket before a crash at the turn 10/11 flip-flop put them out of business with just over an hour to go.

The #58 Benelli TnT gave team Italian Stallion a couple of anxious moments, with a sticking, overheated clutch stalling the bike on approach to a pitstop, followed by the sleeve on the single undertail muffler failing soon after – they finished the race in 18th place in terms of laps run, and would’ve been the runaway winner had there been a decibel category.

One bike which just ran its race and scrubbed up as clean at the end as the moment it was wheeled off the trailer to start practice was the #9 Harley XR1200 of Sy’s Harley-Davidson. Smoked down the straight by bikes with literally twice its power, the Harley finished 15th.

Team Cessnock deserve special mention. They ran race number 46 because, as rider Phil Chapman said, that’s the average age of the team’s three riders, not because they’re Rossi fans, and they ran it on a 115hp naked bike which they then proceeded to ride home into 8th spot, just behind the “big” teams, and 3rd in the Production class. Production, indeed. Their KTM Superduke ran stock pipes.

Apart from Superstock 1000 – won by the outright winners, Holland, Coxhell and Jones – and the Production 1000 – Hatch, Kain and Davies, there was a matching pair of 600cc classes.

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Tags: 6-Hour, AMCN, Bel-Ray, James Spence, Oran Park, Sydney

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