The 6-Hour race was an incredible event, for riders and their teams, organisers and spectators alike. Every team on the grid did an utterly brilliant job with a lot of preparation and effort going into just getting on the grid let alone enduring laps in the intense heat. Endurance racing will bring out every emotion, testing your physical and mental limits and the 6-hour at Oran Park was no different.

Dailybike.com was lucky enough to be invited to follow one of the teams on their journey and this is their report of the race:

Peter Dunstan (Team Manager, Astute)

“A great team effort from all the crew. The riders had to endure extraordinarily difficult conditions, starting off with three one hour stints and in the latter part of the race suffering cramps, dehydration and exhaustion.

The three second win was an amazing team effort. Chief mechanic Dave and his assistants Tom and Spence hammering out those wheel changes, the fuel crew Stewy and Bruce and out on the wall keeping riders informed of the lap situation were Stewy and Mandy.  It was a magnificent experience for everyone involved.”

Sam Ayliffe

” With another 40 degree day staring at us in the morning, we knew we’d be in for a challenge! Nervous about the heat, where Friday’s 40 degree day made a 15 min stint feel an hour, we all were keeping the fluids up as much as possible. After Dave our head mechanic changed our black practice fairings for the race livery in Astute white, we were ready to rumble. A quick short warm up to scrub the tyres in and the bike was set, the “old banger” (as Kev calls her) of a 2001 R6 race-ready and raring to go.

Pit lane open, we were the second bike to head to our starting spot, 22nd of the 31 teams. Lucky for me I got to start this time, with Jim and Kev giving me the green light to go first. Dave and his fiancé Mandy (our beautiful umbrella girl, pit board runner, and assistant in the pits – what an amazing woman) met me on our grid where we sat as a team, generator running the tyre warmers, ready for the start. Starting to feel the heat, I grabbed some more water ready for a long stint. Me and the boys wanted to break the back of the 6 hours by three long 1 hour stints each.

Then, across from the bike, the flag dropped and I was away, running my way over, jumping on to the bike clutching for the clutch and throttle / starter we were off, and making a great start saw us close to the top 10 off the line. Quickly realising this, many of the faster 1000 cc machines started roaring passed me, and then a few laps in I managed to settle in to a steady race pace, run 1:19 and 1:20’s like clockwork. An hour later I’m in, with barely a lap left in my body, a great time to stop.

Kev then had his hour, and Mr consistency would easily complete his hour, the machine Bulldog Kevvy! Then Jim jumps aboard and rolls out, completing a faster session moving us more up the leader board. We then moved to shorter sessions, allowing tyre changes and riders staying focussed. My next stint, although the shortest I did, was certainly the hardest. Battling the elements peaking at 40 degrees where we all struggled with, then a dust storm came across. Oh my god, I have never had a harder session. Manhandling the bike from over the bridge to the flip-flop (turn 5 to 10) was hard work, dropping about 3 seconds a lap due to the fierce wind. Debris was starting to blow over too, turn 3 sharp 2nd gear right hander seemed to be the spot for this. First, a plastic bag, mid corner, I went straight over it forcing me to pick the bike up so not to slide and crash. A quick peek behind saw it go away, thankfully.

The farewell race at Sydney’s Oran Park, the Bel-Ray 6-Hour, served up endurance racing delights in spades to everyone who braved the all-day-long hellish heat and the wind which picked up in the afternoon.

If, as they say, anything can happen in racing, in endurance racing it usually does. Pitstops bring competitors passed many laps ago back like zombies. Even crashes don’t guarantee someone will stay out of the way, and after a racer has pulled in and climbed off the bike, it’s only to rest, not to call it a day.

Because of the pitstops, crash repairs and safety car periods constantly shuffling and compressing the field, endurance racing makes for great watching. Someone’s always putting the pass on someone, there’s always a seven-bike freight train somewhere on the track, and because there’s hours and hours of non-stop racing on the menu, there’s no real need to hold off on going to the bog or the snack car – they’ll still be racing when you come back.

Saturday’s qualifying performance, and the resumes of the riders and teams, put outright victory – and the none-too-shabby $10,000 winners’ purse – within reasonable reach of five teams: the pole-getters from team Big Kahuna Racing on the #63 black 2009 R1, Demolition Plus on the #36 Fireblade built by Geoff Winzer, Dean Evans’ Revolution team on the Rob Halcroft-built #1 R1, race organiser James Spence’s own The 6-Hour team on the #6 R1, and Team Green 2 with their #96 ZX-10R.

Clocking up 277 laps completed by the fall of the chequered flag, it was Demolition Plus’ crew of Russell Holland, Craig Coxhell and Gareth Jones which triumphed with a convincing three-lap margin over Big Kahuna Racing’s Grant Hay, Zac Davies and Dan Stauffer, who managed the race’s fastest lap, a 1:10:994. A further three laps back, The 6-Hour team’s trio of James Spence, Warwick Nowland and David Johnson outdistanced the Revolution team pairing of the Cudlin brothers, Damian and Alex, by just over 36 seconds.

Fifth was taken by a Kawasaki ZX-10R, but by the #10 bike of Team Green, with Mark Hatch, Jason Kain and Rod Taplin aboard, not the #96 machine of Jamie Aitken, Michael McMillan and Murray Clark. They finished just a lap outside top ten after, Murray Clark, the senior rider in the team, lowsided exiting the downhill turn 7. 20 minutes were lost getting the bike back to the pits and repaired. Team manager Paul Aitken was philosophical about the result, confident that, if not for the crash, the team’s strategy of hour-long stints would have brought them victory against the competition’s 45-minute stints. Team Green’s fifth place, however, was achieved on a 1000cc production bike, rather than a more – albeit slightly more – modified Superstock machine. They beat home an even 10 1000cc Superstock teams.

Oran Park will soon be no more. Half-built McMansions are at its back fence already. Fitting, then, that the farewell motorcycle race at this icon of Australian motorsport should be a running of an iconic Australian motorsport event – the 6-Hour endurance race.

Organised by James Spence Promotions with naming-rights backing from Bel-Ray Lubricants, the event has attracted a healthy field of an even 30 teams, and a strong contingent of riders who don’t just do this for fun. Joining the organiser himself on the #6 The 6 Hour team R1 is former FIM World Endurance Champion Warwick Nowland, while the Dean Evans-managed Revolution team has Australian Superbike regulars, brothers Damian and Alex Cudlin, on their 2009 R1 built by the Central Coast Performance Cycle Centre. The #36 Fireblade of the Demolition Plus team and the black #63 2009 R1 of Big Kahuna Racing each go one better, with three ASBK runners sharing the racing duties – Russel Holland, Gareth Jones and Craig Coxhell for Demolition Plus, Grant Hay, Zac Davies and Daniel Stauffer for Big Kahuna.

Kawasaki turned out with backing for two teams – #10, fronted by ASBK runner Jason Kain, backed by Mark Hatch and Rod Taplin, and #96, run by the staff of the Liverpool-based dealer Aitken’s Motorcycle World, with shop owner Paul Aitken managing, his Superstock-1000-pilot son, Jamie, as lead rider, backed up by Michael McMillan and veteran Murray Clark.

Behind these leading five teams come the enthusiastic shop-based teams. Cessnock Motorcycles, a big KTM dealer, turned out in matching orange team t-shirts and Simon Galloway, Phil Chapman and Phil Lovett on the tidy #46 KTM Super Duke. Kawasaki Newcastle have put a pair of experienced Central Coast racers on board their #15 ZX-10R – Graeme Wilshaw and Ken Bradley. Sy’s Harley-Davidson are fielding the lone air-cooled entry – a Harley XR1200. Hiding behind its #9 number board are David Butler and Dave fuller. The XR1200 doesn’t walk away with the least-likely-entry trophy, though. Team Italian Stallion’s choice of a Benelli TnT 1130 for Adrian Pierpoint, Paul Row and Derrick Pastuszek to punt around pips them there.

Dailybike friends, Sam Ayliffe, James Corcoran and Kevin Corcoran of Team Astute Finance, are in the rest of the field. Their #11 series 1 Yamaha R6 is typical of the club-level racers keen for the strategic experience of endurance racing.

A six-hour endurance race is a different proposition to the six, eight or ten-lap sprints which dominate Australian road racing. Patience is needed out on the track, and speed and precision in the pits. A baking-hot sun pushed the air temperature during Saturday’s practice and qualifying over 40 degrees, and made tyre wear out on the track and engine cooling during pitstops an issue. Very few of the teams looked likely to get away without at least one tyre change. Rider fatigue will also be a factor. The Cudlin brothers will run a strategy based on hour-long stints, with fuel stops halfway along. The less experienced runners will be lucky to manage half that if the heat keeps up on race day, as it is forecast to. Several of the faster bikes, the #63 R1 of Big Kahuna Racing, in particular, were having trouble keeping their wheels in line. As per Superstock regs, street-legal treaded tyres are used, and even with the minimal pipes-and-remap tuning allowed, on a blazing hot day, the latest batch of litre sportsbikes can be too much for anything short of a full slick.

In endurance, qualifying means relatively little. Russell Holland was the only one to threaten a sub-1:10 time, banking a 1:10.087. Only Team Demolition’s Grant Hay and Zac Davies dipped into the 1:10’s, the rest of the top teams content with times down to the 1:13’s. From there, qualifying times ranged down to trackday-like 1:26’s. Laurie Fyffe, team manager and lead rider for team Radguard, showed up a good portion of the field when he put his #32 GSX-R600 into eighth with a time of 1:16.239. A good half-dozen Superstock-spec litre bikes are behind him. Our team Astute aren’t doing too badly. Qualifying against everyone’s number one rider, Sam Ayliffe’s 1:19.352 put him 23rd. Against “softer” opposition, #2 rider James Corcoran managed 14th with a time just about a second quicker.

The race kicks off with a Le Mans start at 12:30. Plenty of time to sleep in and still make the race and take part in saying farewell to Oran Park… forever, unfortunately. There’s no getting away from that.

- Marko Alat

12►

Sam Ayliffe of FYI Mortgages has been a long-time sponsor of dailybike.com and also supports causes such as the Reece Bancell Association but this time, he’s the one counting on support as he prepares to compete in this weekends 6-Hour at Oran Park Raceway. Racing with the Astute Team wearing number 11, Sam has been busy preparing the bike that will hopefully see the team to the end of the race, finishing in front of as many others as possible.

Dailybike.com will follow the progress of the Astute team until the end of the 6-Hour. Here Sam gives us a little history to the lead up to Sunday’s race. Don’t forget to cheer on the boys during Sunday’s race!

db Why the 6 hour?

SA Other than the fact I love motorcycling, would almost do it full time if I was at the top level and could earn a decent wicket as I’ve had a ball this my first year of racing club level. After a fantastic and fun first year racing in the St George Motorcycle Club Honda RJays series, where I teamed up with Jim Corcoran in the Wakefield Park 4 Hour endurance race back in August this year, the next enudrance race seemed apealing too. With Jim and I starting 17th out of 30 teams, and finishing a credible 10th, 4th fastest 600cc, and winning our D Grader classification we were ready for the 6 Hour at Oran Park Raceway!

db The lead up?

SA Teaming up again with Jim, and now his brother Kev too, we ran a budget and realised that using one of our own bikes (or a friends) we would need a budget of $15,000 to get us through the event. Right down to marketing the bike, to catering, to spares… this is one event we knew we wanted to be in. So Jim, Kev and I initially had an offer from our mate Giuseppe to race his ‘05 GSXR600. A few testing days later made us realised we may have more problems with this bike than one of our own. So, in discussions with James Spence allowing us to race one of the three Yamaha R6’s, a 2001/02 model, meant we were back on track with a bike we know we can ride all day around Oran Park (hopefully, touch wood!). 

db The sponsorship?

SA Knowing we have a huge bill ahead of us, knowing it will be worth it, the boys and I set out a plan. Kev did a fantastic sponsorship proposal, and low and behold we were snapped up immediately. Astute Financial Management, our aggregator, like a business partner group, to my Finance Brokering Business (FYI Finance & Property) took us up on our offer and we set off as Astute #11 racing. Securing a second sponsor in Gliderol Garage Doors put us in perfect stead to get into this event looking good, well supported, and an array of spares. We were set!! A huge thank you already to our sponsors, making our dream of racing the last ever 6 hour race at Oran Park a reality!

db What happened next?

SA All sponsored up and ready to go, we set out to get us ready for Race Day. Spencer Evans from APWR at Chard Road Brookvale (that is A.P.W.R, remember the red R) sprayed up our bikes. Spense is a long time supporter and he always makes sure we look good. Cam at BikeBiz got us some spares and tyres for the weekend, Cutgrafix our logo’s and stickers, all set to go! (In fact just getting finished this week). Dave our mechanic has the bike in tip top shape ready to run all day, and we are looking forward to the big race day.

db The result?

SA If you’re as anxious as me, trying to get all my other business interviews done for the week, watch this space, 6 hour here we come!

- Mark M

www.astutefinancial.com.au

www.gliderol.com.au/

www.bikebiz.com.au

www.cutgrafix.com

www.fyigroup.com.au

APWR

All Plastic Welding Repairs
Contact: Spencer
Phone: 0417 029 058
9 Chard Road,
Brookvale,
NSW 

For all details regarding the 6-Hour: www.the6hour.com.au

Or check out the dailybike.com 6-Hour calendar page: 6-Hour