- Promotion -

Honda Australia is holding one of their adrenalin-pumping Ride Days at Phillip Island on Friday, May 7th and places are still available.

Honda’s events start at just $170, and include plenty of track time on the award winning circuit.

Honda also provides their latest sportsbikes available for test rides on the day including the CBR600RR and CBR1000RR.

Honda ride days are aimed at offering riders a chance to test their road registered, roadworthy motorcycle in a safe, controlled environment. Race bikes and slick tyres are not allowed.

Riders are encouraged to ride at a comfortable speed for their skill level, with many booking a Honda day time and time again due to the relaxed, pressure-free environment provided by staff and other riders.

Participating in a ride day at the stunning Phillip Island track is the perfect way to hone skills whilst having a great day out riding with mates and partners.

The registration fee covers use of the circuit, whilst a Motorcycling Australia license is available to purchase for $20 for those who do not already have one.

Lunch catering is available on site for those who do not bring their own.

A registration form can be downloaded from www.hondamotorcycles.com.au under the “Events” section.

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The first Superstock 600cc race for the year is always very exciting! You can’t beat the adrenalin rush of lining up on the grid for the first big race of the year, especially at Phillip Island. With no practice under my belt since last year, I felt a bit under prepared and in a less than ideal situation as I like more track time to feel good on the bike. There was also the looming evidence that the new control tyres for our class weren’t as good as the control tyre of 2009 but I was sure after a few laps of The Island would soon tell if I liked them or not.

There were small set-up changes made to the bike in regards to the suspension to compensate for the different tyres and ‘Pinky’, my trusty Yamaha R6, had a brand new set of shiny pink fairings ready to race. It was pretty hard to miss me out on the track with the pink colours and it was a great way to gain profile for the McGrath Foundation.

Qualifying

Approximately 30 riders entered my class, the biggest field of the weekend. With so many riders on the track, qualifying was very busy on Thursday morning and with only 20 minutes to get the bike sorted, it was all very hectic.

Surprisingly, I managed to qualify in 10th position on the grid, with a personal best lap time! What a great way to start the season and with no practice. Although most of the riders complained about front end grip with the new tyres, I seemed to have more of an issue with turning the bike! The new set up made it more difficult for me to tip the bike in on a turn and when exiting the corner on the throttle I seemed to run wide. With some more time on the bike I am sure I will get a better feel for it, but I wasn’t complaining with top 10 in qualifying, that’s for sure.

Race 1

I got a terrible start. It is extremely daunting having 30 riders all aiming for the one race line in the first couple of corners. I was a bit hesitant on the first lap and dropped back a lot of positions as the race settled down. However, I fought my way back through the pack of riders and picked off riders one by one to finish the race in tenth position. A good start to the year and I was happy with how things went.

Race 2

A much better start this time and I tried to be a little more aggressive on the opening lap. But I missed some gears and lost a heap of momentum that allowed other riders to overtake me. I passed a few back but by the end of the race I finished 11th. I would like to have stayed up front early in the race and try and match my pace with the leaders.

Race 3

With the amount of races scheduled for the day, our final race was at 6pm and I was ready for dinner, not racing. Things were going well until my last flying lap when I decided to overtake a rider under brakes through a hairpin turn. I was going too fast for my own good and I couldn’t pull the bike up in time. So rather then T-bone the other rider, I decided to try to tip in hard on the right and make the turn. I cranked it over, all the way over and went down. I also took the other rider with me.

That was a disappointing way to finish the weekend as I was headed for ninth in the race and that would have given me a pretty good overall result for the day. ‘Pinky’ only ended up with a few small war wounds that can be easily fixed and she will be ready to go for the next race.

Racing resumes in three weeks time at the opening round of the New South Wales series. By then I hope to have had a lot more practice and feel much better on the bike. I might also learn how to use my brakes properly and not take myself out when in good positions.

www.amyomara.com.au

Again, thank you to all my sponsors who make racing happen.

Yamaha: www.yrt.com.au
McGrath Foundation: www.mcgrathfoundation.com.au
YRD: www.yrt.com.au/assets/img/pdf/trailzone_yrd.pdf
Shark Helmets: www.ficeda.com.au
Axo Boots: www.ficeda.com.au
Ixon Suits: www.ficeda.com.au
Belray: www.ficeda.com.au
DID Chains: www.ficeda.com.au
Cunninghams Property: www.cunninghamsproperty.com.au
FYI Property: www.fyigroup.com.au
URM Group: www.urmgroup.com.au
Action Motorcycles: www.actionmc.com.au
Roland: www.rolanddg.com.au
Fancy Dog Accessories: www.fancydog.com.au

All photography © Keith Muir | www.bike-photos.com

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Leon Haslam and Carlos Checa split the victories in today’s opening round of the World Superbike Championship. Xerox Ducati’s Michele Fabrizio joined them on the rostrum with a second and a third, with Noriyuki Haga picking up third spot in the opening race. Irish rider Eugene Laverty won the World Supersport race with a dominant performance ahead of Joan Lascorz and Kenan Sofuoglu.

World Superbike Warm-up:

Let’s ‘av’ it: led by Jonathan Rea, the Superbike field chomps at the white line to get Warm-up underway.

World Superbike action started with a bang, followed by a dust cloud from the Turn 1 – Doohan Corner – gravel trap, kicked up by a works Ducati and BMW skittering across it, with  Noriyuki Haga and Ruben Xaus cartwheeling in pursuit. Xaus had drafted Haga down the straight and was just inside his line when the Japanese pilot tipped in. A desperate lunge for the brakes by Xaus folded his front wheel, and the falling S1000RR collected Haga’s rear wheel, knocking the Ducati over the highside. It was Xaus’ fourth crash of the weekend, and his last. On doctor’s advice, he elected to withdraw, joining Roland Resch, who broke a collarbone in a qualifying crash yesterday, on the bench.

Shakey Byrne was the only other faller in warm-up, laying his Althea Ducati down at Lukey Heights in the last five minutes of the session, after setting the 12th-fastest time, an improvement on the 18th-best time he set in qualifying, and the last time in the 1:32 bracket, which also includes both the factory Yamahas, both Suzukis, and the the Aprilia pairing of Max Biaggi and Leon Camier. After a none-too-spectacular qualifying – 11th for Biaggi, 16th for Camier, the two of them topped the warm-up timesheet, both lapping faster than they did in Superpole yesterday – Camier, for one, picked up a whole six tenths. Whatever the Aprilia team did overnight would appear to have worked.

Carlos Checa takes a shortcut down pitlane in World Superbike Warm-up.

Race 1:

Leon Haslam got a red-hot start from pole and was never headed, always a handy half-dozen bikelengths in front from the pursuing pair of Xerox Ducatis of Michel Fabrizio and Noriyuki Haga, who flew in formation, give or take the odd polite pass. It was only towards the very end of the race that Fabrizio found some extra speed, closing enough on Haslam to attempt one of Phillip Island’s trademark draught-passes out of Turn 12. The young Italian got so close he celebrated the finish as a win, finding out on his return to the pits that he’d lost the closest finish in the history of World Superbike at Phillip Island – 0.004 seconds separated him from Haslam.

Haga motored home in a safe third, no doubt pleased that he was able to erase his poor qualifying position – he leapt from the tenth spot on the grid to the front by the end of the straight on the first lap, and there he stayed, finishing  seventh tenths behind the sudden battle for the win, and over nine seconds clear of Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea, who spent most of the race in an almighty four-way fight for four place with Aprilia’s Max Biaggi, Haslam’s team mate Sylvain Guintoli and Carlos Checa on the Althea Ducati. Starting from eleventh, Biaggi was also able to overcome his poor qualifying, and his Aprilia’s speed down the straight – Biaggi’s 316kph was the fastest of the race – helped out with the rest of the pack he was in taking turns to barge past him on the brakes into the Turn 4 and MG corner hairpins.

Further back, things got somewhat strung out. with only Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes and Shakey Byrne on the other Althea Ducati coming home locked together, fighting for thirteenth place. It was not where either wanted to be, especially Byrne, who got off to a storming start from eighteenth on the grid, but then ran off down the Turn 4 escape road on the second lap.

He had better luck with Turn 4 than either Chris Vermeulen or Cal Crutchlow, who both exited stage left from the race there – Vermeulen on Lap 4, Crutchlow on Lap 6. Once he came to a stop, the Englishman ran to his fallen Yamaha, but there was no continuing – the bike had tumbled acros s the grass, snapping controls. Vermeulen’s crash was neater, but damage to the cooling system released a huge steamcloud across the Phillip Island infield and ensured the Australian couldn’t even limp home.

It was an unhappy race for recent MotoGP riders. James Toseland also DNF’d, going out on the second lap, and giving Sterilgarda Yamaha no points from the opening race of the 2010 Championship.

Troy Corser, spinning the lone factory BMW propeller after Xaus’ retirement, had a fittingly lonely race to ninth, a full 20 seconds down on the winners, and another six up on the top-ten tailender, Lorenzo Lanzi on the DFX Ducati. Jakub Smrz, on the other privateer Ducati, was a good four seconds up on Corser in eighth.

Leon Camier was another to take to the Turn 4 escape road. He’d been running with the Rea-Biaggi-Guintoli-Checa battle until the mistake. He brought the second Aprilia home in eleventh, just far enough ahead of Max Neukirchner – 0.4 sec – for the German not have been a worry for him. Behind the Sykes-Byrne battle, Andrew Pitt came away with the sole remaining point on the Reitwagen BMW.

Vittorio Ianuzzo won the battle of the cash-strapped privateers down the back, ahead of the Pedercini Kawasakis of Baiocco and Hayden. Josh Brookes, who had to pit early to correct a mechanical problem with his ECHO CRS Honda, rejoined the race to get more track time on the underdeveloped bike and finished five laps down.

Sayonara, suckers. Leon Haslam (91) bolted from red light to chequered flag in Race 1, although a late banzai charge by Michel Fabrizio (84) almost paid off – the Italian lost by only 0.004 seconds in the closest finish in World Superbike at Phillip Island.

Results, Race 1:

Race 2:

Well, this was more like it. After the tense, but – four-way battle for fourth notwithstanding – processional Race 1, Race 2 served up a classic World Superbike fight-to-the-finish, won by Carlos Checa, who fought his way from the back of the leading pack to decisively pass Leon Haslam into MG Corner on the last lap, and open up a four-tenth lead by the finish line.

This time, the four-bike battle was for the win, not fourth place. Sylvain Guintoli, whose sixth place in Race 1 was already none too shabby for a World Superbike newcomer, ran right with, and plenty often enough ahead of his Race 1-winning team mate. Michel Fabrizio, pumped by his Race 1 podium and near-victory, was also right in the mix, routinely going side-by-side with both the Suzukis.

Checa started out at the tail of this battle, accounting first for Noriyuki Haga, then setting after the red-vs-blue battle between Fabrizio’s Ducati and the pair of Alstare GSX-R’s. The dogfight lasted for the full race, culminating in Checa’s victory and a none-too-happy Haslam on the podium in second. Fabrizio, often running second, had to settle for third once Checa made his charge. Haga dropped off from the battle towards the end, finishing 3.7 seconds down in fourth. His third and fourth place finishes come with a handy haul of points to take away from the first round, expecially considering some of the bad luck further down the field.

Behind Haga, Johnny Rea, who was in the lead group until he and Haga came together on entry into Turn 4 early in the race, led home a procession of bikes strung out by gaps of between half a second to a second and a half – just far enough to lose the tow in a race. Immediately behind Rea’s white Ten Kate Honda was the black-blue-and-white BMW of Troy Corser, who improved his fastest race lap by a full six tenths compared to Race 1, and finished eight seconds closer to the leaders – 12 seconds down, not 20. A second down on Corser, Max Biaggi paid for a trip into the grass in Turn 4 with an eighth-place finish.

Almost a second and a half down on Biaggi, the Sterilgarda Yamahas of Crutchlow and Toseland crossed the line three tenths apart to close out the top ten, an incremental improvement from their early exits in race 1.

Chris Vermeulen would likely give a lot for some of that incremental improvement. After crashing out of a packed mid-pack in Race 1, the Australian found the gravel trap at Lukey Heights on the sixth lap in Race 2, then kept going to wedge himself up to his waist under the tyre wall. The culprit – gearbox failure.

Kawasaki’s rotten luck didn’t stop there. Vermeulen’s team mate Tom Sykes and Matteo Baiocco of Team Pedercini also crashed out, with the sole finishing Kawasaki being that of Roger Lee Hayden, last in eighteenth place, behind the privateer Honda of Ianuzzo and, crushingly, the factory Honda of Max Neukirchner, who finished outside the points.

Carlos Checa was on a mission in Race 2. Before he could mug Leon Haslam for the win three corners from the flag, he had to get through his team mate first. Running right in front, and leading Haslam for much of the race, Sylvain Guintoli just missed out on a podium, finishing fourth.

Results, Race 2:

Championship after Round 1:

World Supersport Warm-up:

Hondas to the left of me, Hondas to the right: Fabien Foret (#99) was the charger in Warm-up, with the fifth-fastest time, five up on his grid position from yesteray.

Joan Lascorz continued to lead the depleted World Supersport field in morning warm-up, but the chasing Ten Kate Hondas of Kenan Sofuoglu and Michele Pirro are now right on his tail, less than 0.04 and 0.2 seconds back. Lascorz’ team mate, Katsuaki Fujiwara was fourth, some 0.4 seconds back – again, closer than the qualifying gap from yesterday.

Fabien Foret, on the third Kawasaki ZX-6R in the field, pushed hard in warm-up, running off the track at Turn 4 before sticking the bike into the weeds at the Hayshed on the same lap, but he was the only rider to come close to his qualifying time, and clocked in fifth, a big improvement on his tenth position on the grid. David Salom, absent from Friday’s sessions, mirrored his qualifying position with the sixth-best warm-up time. He remains the top Triumph runner, ahead of Chaz Davies and Jason DiSalvo in seventh and ninth. In the midst of that gaggle of Daytona 675’s sits Eugene Laverty’s Parkalgar CBR600RR, who’ll be starting fourth.

Race:

Last reported sighting of Eugene Laverty by the rest of the field in the World Supersport race. The Irishman bolted from both starts of the incident-interrupted race, winning by over four seconds.

There were two World Supersport races held at Phillip Island, the first an abortive three-lapper, ended by red flags after Massimo Roccoli’s CBR600RR exploded in a cloud of burning-hot oil mist at the Hayshed. Rather than run a shortened race, the organisers elected to give the crowd its money’s worth and re-ran the full 21-lap race.

That was lucky for Turkey’s Kenan Sofuoglu, who had a shocking opening lap of the first attempt at the race, running off at Turn 4 and rejoining so late that, on the second lap, he was battling for position with championship newcomer Paola Cazzola right down the back of the grid. After tha restart, the former champion was right in the mix.

If Sofuoglu was lucky to have the restart, Eugene Laverty, starting from second place, didn’t care either way. He shot off into the middle distance on both occasions and came away with a crushing 4.3 second victory, making irrelevant the 0.3 second qualifying advantage carved out by Joan Lascorz on the Team Motocard Kawasaki. For his part, Lascorz would’ve probably preferred to have done without the restart. Rather than be left in peace to try to figure out what he would do about Laverty up ahead -way ahead – he spent the entire restarted race fending off Sofuoglu, finally shaking him off with a draught-pass down the straight. Immediately behind their battle, their team mates, Michele Pirro and Katsuaki Fujiwara, were doing the same, at least until they tangled at Turn 4 and went down eight laps from the flag, with only Fujiwara rejoining to finish eleventh, 40 seconds down on the winner.

Behind the podium finishers, David Salom took fourth on the top-finishing of the four Triumphs in the field, five and a half seconds ahead of Fabien Foret on the Lorenzini by Leoni Kawasaki.

There were yawning, multi-second gaps down the rest of the field, with the only battle, between Miguel Praia and Gino Rea, for ninth place, behind American Jason Di Salvo, who raced for a Triumph team with tape over the Yamaha livery on the leathers he brought with him from AMA.

In an encouraging sign for her, Paola Cazzola, racing this far afield and in a World Championship for the first time, finished and banked two points.

After the restart, This went on all race long behind Laverty. Joan Lascorz (37) edged out Kenan Sofuoglu (54) for second after a draft-pass down the straight on the penultimate lap.

Results, World Superport:

Anyway, on to the pics.

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Leon Haslam of Alstare Suzuki has broken through for his first World Superbike pole position at Phillip Island today. He’ll start tomorrow’s races at the front of a grid shaken up by the events of a dramatic Superpole, which saw numerous likely race winners relegated to the second and third row.

Austrian Roland Resch didn’t even get that far. He just scraped into the top 20 (new rules for Superpole last year, remember) with a Q2 time of just over 1:32, but then end-over-ended his Reitwagen BMW S1000RR into the gravel trap at Siberia, breaking a collarbone as he cartwheeled after the bike. He won’t be starting tomorrow – a disappointing start to his World Superbike experience.

Behind Haslam on the grid tomorrow will be a brace of unlikely helmet liveries – Michel Fabrizio in second place notwithstanding. Cal Crutchlow has picked up where Ben Spies left off on the factory Yamaha, and scored himself a front-row start in his first World Superbike Superpole. He’ll have his team mate over his right shoulder – James Toseland could manage no better than eighth-fastest  in final Superpole on his debut for Sterilgarda Yamaha.

Like Crutchlow, Carlos Checa wouldn’t appear to have had much trouble getting used to the Ducati after several seasons on Hondas. He’s fourth. Fellow championship debutant Sylvain Guintoli’s fifth spot on the grid could be taken as having come with an unfair advantage in this company; he’d raced a GSX-R1000 in British Superbike – when he wasn’t laid off with major injury, that is.

Noriyuki Haga’s 1:32.229 in Superpole 2 was not enough to get him into the top eight and Superpole 3 – or top nine, for that matter. He starts from tenth, with Lorenzo Lanzi ahead and Max Biaggi behind him. The Italian veteran had another of his unhappy Superpoles, but rare has been race where a midfield start has kept him from slicing and barging his way towards the front for too long. His best regular-qualifying time of 1:33.637 is in the wrong bracket, though. Some nine riders banked times in the 1:32’s. It remains to be seen what the team can do for Biaggi and team mate Leon Camier, who starts from 16th, in tomorrow’s warm-up.

Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus continue to wring extra speed from their BMW’s. Both improved on their Q1 times from yesterday by big margins – something riders of the caliber of Haga or Biaggi didn’t manage on the cold, windy track this morning (yesterday’s sunshine and still air were ideal go-fast conditions). They started from too low a base, though. The hard work by the riders and the team could only secure 13th (Corser) and 15h (Xaus) for what remain the most striking-looking machines in the field – the cameras love them.

Sandwiched between the factory BMW’s is Australia’s Chris Vermeulen, riding for the other manufacturer yet to see a payoff in results for its development work – Kawasaki. Edged out by team mate Tom Sykes in the Kawasaki-furthest-from-the-back-of-the-grid stakes, Vermeulen remains upbeat. The bike appears much more controllable that last year’s rear-wheel-steering wheelie machine. Joan Lascorz and Katsuaki Fujiwara in World Supersport were pulling bigger power wheelies out of MG corner so far this weekend than the factory ZX-10R’s! The improved engine management is likely not to have filtered down to the satellite operation of Team Pedercini – their riders, Matteo Baiocco and Roger Lee Hayden, fill the last two spots on the grid, behind Vittorio Ianuzzo’s underfunder privateer Honda, and Australia’s Josh Brookes, who’s riding a privateer Honda which isn’t even his!

The most disappointed with his grid placing is likely to be Max Neukirchner. On the always-fast factory Honda, the German starts from a lowly 17th. His regular qualifying time indicates he can run in the 1:32’s, which should put him in the mix come race time tomorrow.

Results, Superpole 3:

(bold = quicker qualifying time. If the rider doesn’t better his regular qualifying time in Superpole, the regular qualifying time counts)

Results, Superpole 2:

Results, Superpole 1:

Not qualified for Superpole:

In World Supersport, Triumph pilot David Salom returned to action after missing yesterday’s sessions and proceeded to put his Daytona 675 onto the second row of the grid – a full second behind pole-setter Joan Lascorz. The Spanish Kawasaki rider found an extra eight tenths from the time he set yesterday to secure a clear view down Gardner Straight tomorrow; he’s over two tenths clear of Kenan Sofuoglu and his Ten Kate CBR600RR.

Going by the form shown by the field so far, tomorrow’s race is likely to feature the Motocard.com Kawasakis of Lascorz and Katsuaki Fujiwara, who qualified fifth, and the Hondas of Sofuoglu, Michel Pirro and Eugene Laverty doing a lot of lapping of slower traffic, with the tail-enders in the field, Sweden’s Alexander Lundh and the Italian duo of Danilo dell’Omo and Paola Cazzola over three, four and five seconds down on the pole time.

World Supersport Qualifying results:

More when the real action gets underway tomorrow. Stay tuned.

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Carlos Checa sits on provisional pole, Australia’s at Phillip Island as the 2010 World Superbike season got underway in ideal sunny, still conditions.

Phillip Island’s signature winds and variable weather stayed away for the first day of action as the 24 Superbikes got off to a cautious start on Friday. All teams tested at the track only a week ago and most of the riders posted times over half a second faster than they managed – or bothered; there’s Superpole to think about  – on the first day of the championship’s opening round.

Switching to a satellite Ducati from a Ten Kate Honda, Carlos Checa improved his fifth-best free practice time of 1:33.218 by over a second to bank a provisional pole-setting 1:32.155 on the 11th of his 24 qualifying laps before crashing on the 20th.  Behind him, Michel Fabrizio on the factory Xerox Ducati overcame a crash in morning practice to improve even more, going from eleventh-fastest in practice to second in qualifying.

The pair of factory-supported Ducati teams almost had the provisional front row sewn up, with Checa’s team mate Shane “Shakey” Byrne fourth with a time in the 1:32.6’s, and the veteran Noriyuki Haga less than a tenth of a second back in fifth.

Leon Haslam, making his debut for Alstare Suzuki, spoiled the Ducati party by posting the third fastest time. He also topped first practice, showing how well the combination of baby-faced Englishman and a Francis Batta-built GSX-R1000 has been working. Haslam’s team-mate, and WSB newcomer, Sylvain Guintoli, has also started out strong, recording the eighth-quickest time. His 1:32.902 is only abot half a tenth slower than the 1:32:869 he recorded in testing last week. Haslam is also right on the pace he showed in testing, indicating the Alstare Suzukis are working well.

Further back, Max Biaggi is the faster of the two factory Aprilias. A crash early on in qualifying kept the Italian off the track for 10 minutes. His fastest time came late in the session. Not as late as Leon Camier’s, who waited until his very last lap to set his fastest time. He’s 11th with a 1:33.296.

Current World Supersport Champion, Cal Crutchlow, was the faster of the pair of factory Yamahas, managing tenth fastest right behind Jakub Smrz’ privateer Ducati. Crutchlow’s team mate, the returning dual WSB champion James Toseland, managed only 13th fastest, edged out by Chris Vermeulen on the fastest of the four Kawasakis in the field. Like Biaggi, Toseland also crashed early in qualifying, losing 10 minutes of the hour-long session in the pits.

Both Biaggi or Toseland’s mishaps were dwarfed by the misery endured by the factory BMW team. Troy Corser, who, in 16th, is a full two and a half seconds behind pole time, tipped off at the downhill hairpin right MG Corner towards the middle of the session, just as he was going for fast laptimes. Trying to save the crash bruised the knuckles on his right hand when it was trapped under the handlebar. Ever the nonplussed optimist, Corser was confident that the improvements in suspension and engine-management settings the team were making, and which found him half a second between morning practice and qualifying in the afternoon, would put him towards the front come race day.

It was up to Corser’s team mate to serve as the real lightning rod for bad luck on the day. Ruben Xaus crashed twice at MG Corner in morning practice, heavily damaging his S1000RR on both occasions, the followed that up with another off at Phillip Island’s other slow right-hand hairpin, Turn 4, in qualifying. Low on bikes to ride, he had to sit out most of qualifying, managing to bank only four full laps, and ending up stuck in 19th.

The satellite BMW’s of Team Reitwagen shadowed their factory counterparts, Andrew Pitt one spot behind Corser in 17th, Austrian newcomer Roland Resch in 20th, less than a tenth down on Xaus.

Honda’s slimmed-down World Superbike campaign, still outsourced to the massively capable Ten Kate operation, is spearheaded by Briton Jonathan Rea in seventh. Returning to Honda after three years on Suzukis, Max Neukirchner didn’t have the best of welcomes home, crashing in morning practice and managing no better than 18th in qualifying.

Kawasaki’s decision to put MotoGP departee Chris Vermeulen and British Superbike champ Tom Sykes on their factory bikes would appear to be yielding (very) incremental improvements. After finishing last week’s test outside the top 15, both riders finished Friday inside the Superpole cutoff of 16 – Vermeulen in 12th, Sykes in 15th. Lucio Pedercini’s privateer green team, fielding AMA front-runner Roger Lee Hayden and young Matto Baiocco, has been stuck out the back. Both their men are a second down on the third-last runner, Australia’s Josh Brookes, who’s standing in for an injured Broc Parkes on the privateer ECHO CRS Honda.

World Superbike standings, after Friday qualifying:

Carlos Checa enroute to putting his Team Althea Ducati 1198R atop the Superbike timesheets in Friday qualifying.

In World Supersport, the departure of Yamaha and Suzuki has left the might of  Ten Kate Honda to be opposed by Kawasaki and Triumph, and it was Spain’s Joan Lascorz, on one of the Team Motocard.com ZX-6R, who came away with provisional pole on Friday, narrowly – by 15 thousandths of a second – edging out last year’s championship runner-up, Irishman Eugene Laverty on the Ten Kate-supported Parkalgar CBR600RR. Past runaway series champion, Kenan Sofuoglu of Turkey, was right on both their tails, less than 0.015 seconds back, with Katsuaki Fujiwara in fourth as the other slice of bread in a Honda-on-green sandwich.

Top Triumph was Briton Chaz Davies in sixth, close behind Sofuoglu’s team mate Michel Pirro.

Of the other Supersport runners, only Fabien Foret, the 2002 series winner, on the Lorenzini by Leoni Kawasaki, was in touch with the front of the field. Behind the Frenchman’s fastest time of 1:35.233, a half-second gap opens out to Miguel Praia in eighth, the other eight runners trickling away to the 1:38.402 banked by Danillo del’Omo and the 1:39.272 of his team mate, Paola Cazzola. Racing for a low-budget team, World Supersport’s first full-time female rider has a hill to climb tomorrow.

World Supersport standings after Friday qualifying:

Joan Lascorz is the provisional pole man in World Supersport after Friday qualifying.

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Phillip Island served up a clear blue dome of sky and a bright yellow ball of Sun for the dawning day’s action in the 2010 World Superbike Championship. For the second year in a row, Australia is hosting the opening round, the first laying of cards on the table by the very healthy Superbike grid of 14 teams fielding 24 riders on a record-equalling seven types of machine.

The series is short one reigning champion, Yamaha having wasted no time pulling out a MotoGP seat for Ben Spies. His 2009 performance was the first time a rider had won World Superbike on debut (Fred Merkel’s 1998 title notwithstanding – there was no World SBK before then), and the first time Yamaha’s huge investment in the series over the years finally brought home the winner’s trophy. Yamaha’s hurry to get the American onto a GP bike before he gets too old is only too understandable.

That particular rider change was easy – a straight swap of current champ Spies for 2004 and 2007 champ James Toseland, who returns to World Superbike after a hard two years partnering Colin Edwards in MotoGP. Having previously won for Ducati and Honda, Toseland will now try to do the business for a third manufacturer, something no rider has yet managed.

Joining Toseland in leaving MotoGP is Australia’s Chris Vermeulen, who leaves the battling Suzuki MotoGP team. He takes over from now Honda-mounted countryman Broc Parkes (Josh Brookes is filling in for the injured Parkes this weekend) the thankless job of getting the Kawasaki ZX-10R to the pointy end of the field. Partnering Toseland is last year’s World Supersport champion, England’s Cal Crutchlow. Like Ben Spies, he won on championship debut, too. Backing them up, the satellite Pedercini team is fielding Nicky Hayden’s kid bro Roger Lee. Italian youngster Matteo Baiocco, who tried his arse off and crashed his brains out on a ZX10 last year is back for more in 2010.

France’s Sylvain Guintoli rounds out the 2010 batch of talent swap with MotoGP, who arrives into the Alstare Suzuki team via an injury-marred 2009 in British Superbikes, accompanied by Leon Camier, whose 2009 BSB title has drawn the attention of the Aprilia squad. The young Englishman joins Max Biaggi on the black-and-dayglo RSV4.

Aprilia Alitalia’s Max Biaggi and Leon Camier at the rider press conference.

Not much of the rest of the field is shuffled around. Carlos Checa is now on a Ducati, partnering Shakey Byrne. Former Suzuki pilot Max Neukirchner is back on a Fireblade.

BMW, who have done much work to get the frequently-sideways S1000RR pointing the right way down the track in the off-season, retain the services of Troy Corser and Ruben Xaus for the factory team, and are backing the satellite Reitwagen team of Australia’s Andrew Pitt and, in what is bound to cause confusion for American commentators,  Austrian rider Roland Resch.

Yes, Troy Corser’s hat does say what it looks like it says. It’s an energy drink.

Oh, yeah. And Haga’s still on the factory Ducati, partnering Michel Fabrizio.

The de-rigeur customer Ducatis are represented by the Czech Republic’s Jakub Smrz and  former factory rider Lorenzo Lanzi.

World Supersport has been hit hard by the Global Financial Crisis and defections of engineering talent to the nascent Moto2 control-engine class in MotoGP. For the first time since the series’ infancy in the late 1990’s, the Superbike entries outnumber the Supersports. Only 10 teams have managed to scrape together enough sponsorship to field a MotoGP-like total of only 17 riders. Yamaha and Suzuki are absent from the grid, and, with four bikes, Triumph are the second most numerous manufacturer after Honda’s 10. Three Kawasakis round out the festivities.

The fall in numbers, however, has been at the tail of the field. Cal Crutchlow’s  promotion, and Andrew Pitt’s return to WSB aside, the front-runners from last year are all still there. Last year’s runner-up, Irishman Eugene Laverty, is back, as are the third through to fifth finishers, past champions Kenan Sofuoglu of Turkey and France’s Fabien Foret, and Spaniard Joan Lascorz.

Of the championship newcomers, big things should be expected of American Jason di Salvo, a long-time front-runner in AMA, and of Briton Chaz Davies, now a full-time campaigner. Both are on Triumph Daytona 675’s.

32-year-old Italian Paola Cazzola is another graduate into the world championship, and  the first woman to sign up to compete for a full season. She’ll be on one of the CBR600RR’s in the field, partnered by fellow Italian newcomer Danilo dell’Omo.

Last year’s championship stood out for all the best reasons – two new manufacturers and three radical new bikes in WSB (one of which won the title), some of the biggest fields in the history of championship and tight title contests in both WSB and WSS, both won by newcomers. The maturity of the BMW and Aprilia in Superbike, and the hopeful levelling of the playing field in Supersport by the sponsorship crunch, should mean this season puts up a decent fight for a place among the more memorable ones as World Superbike nears the quarter-century mark.

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If you want to be the first this year to see one of the best World Championships live, then you need to book your ticket for the World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island, February 26 – 28th. The eyes of the world will be on ‘The Island’ at the end of the month to see who’s going to come out victorious and set themselves apart from the competition to be the early series leader.

There are numerous tickets to choose from but you can’t get better value than a 3 day pass. Friday and Saturday qualifying allows you time to scour the best vantage points, leaving you to enjoy everything Sunday has to offer.

If you’re after a bit more adventure, the campground provides a unique experience. Forget the alarm clock, just wake up to the sound of highly tuned 4-stroke engine screaming their lungs out.

For those who want to feel like they’ve brought their local to the Island, there’s BAR SBK with four licensed Marquees in the best viewing locations.

Nothing tops the VIP tickets for the ultimate Superbike experience. With packages that include a pit-roof corporate suite with special access to the rider autograph session, to flying in via helicopter, to shoulder rubbing with the worlds best superbike riders, you’ll surely be talking about it for days after.

Whichever ticket you choose, in the end it’s all about the racing and that will surely be a spectacle.

To get an overview of the event and ticket prices, check out the Dailybike 2010 Aussie WSB page here.

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Aprilia and John Sample Automotive are getting in early on the Australian round of World Superbike by announcing they will be hosting a corporate facility “Club Aprilia V4” at Phillip Island in February 2010.

Located on Gardner Straight, Aprilia promise sweeping views and plenty of action for attendees. Only 40 lucky guests will be able to enjoy the facility at a cost of $699.00 which will include:

• Entry to the track
• One reserved seat in the Club Aprilia V4 dining suite
• Morning and afternoon tea
• Hot lunch and soft drinks
• A reserved space in the motorcycle parking area (located behind the facility)
• One reserved viewing seat
• An Aprilia information kit
• An Aprilia merchandise voucher to the value of $100.00
• A pit walk and super screen viewing.

“2010 is set to be an exciting year for Aprilia with the launch of the Aprilia RSV4R and with the continued

success of the Aprilia Racing Team, what better way to celebrate than with a hospitality facility allowing

attendees to share in the excitement” said Kris Matich the National Manager for John Sample Automotive.

If you would like to reserve your place or receive further information please contact Alana Baratto on 02

9914 8738 or via email at abaratto@jsg.com.au

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