Sept 13th - 15th 2024
Team Race Center had a strong weekend at Round 3 of the 2024 Pirelli Motul Victorian Road Racing Championship at the iconic Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit.
Despite limited testing and practice the team had some clear, key focus areas for the riders and it seemed to be pay off with a few great results and a bunch of PB's.
Phillip Island sure lived up to its reputation, giving us rain, hail, wind and even some sunshine leading to extremely mixed and difficult conditions across the 3 days. It is one of the most of the best race circuits in the world, however the weather it can dish up sure is something else!
Superbike - William Sharrock - Yamaha R1 #44
Will Sharrock took his maiden pole position aboard his YZF-R1 in tricky conditions that saw the team make a big strategic call to run slicks on a damp track backed up by a stella performance by Will in very difficult conditions. Watch a recap of this below.
Unfortunately we were not quite able to convert Will's Pole into the race results as we had hoped for. A series of hiccups including Will not being comfortable on the 2nd wet bike due to a setup difference and a strange puncture just before the Harvey Whiltshire race meant that we simply didn't deliver on the strong underlying pace that was there. Still Will gave it his all and collected 3rd overall for the round.
Supersport - Harley Side - Yamaha R6 #95
Saucey signaled a return to form having a strong weekend with 2nd overall in the hotly contested Supersport 600 category. The highlight was a brilliant battle with Scott Nicholson in race 2. The pair swapped the lead many time with Saucey holding the lead heading into the final turn on the last lap. Unfortunately a small mistake on corner entry saw Sauce get a poor drive onto the straight and he was pipped to the line by Scott. Still a thrilling performance that was also coupled with some brilliant overtakes. Top job Sauce!
Check out this short onboard video from Harley showing some thrilling passes and close racing
Supersport 300 - Alexander Brisbane #54
After missing the first 2 rounds and the last 6 months due to work commitments, Alex put in a standout performance smashing his previous PB by over 3 seconds with a brilliant 1.55.1 on his R3
Alex was probably the biggest beneficiary of the rejuvenated focus points the team has been working on, plus greatly benefited from have Race Center's Luke Sanders on hand coaching both himself and Colin.
While mature in age in terms of when he started the sport, Alex is still very early in his development and relatively inexperienced. It was wonderful to see him having such a go, even managing a little spill in practice which on resulted in a 'couple of yonnie's in the engine bay'. It is going to be great to see how fast he can become in the coming years!
Supersport 300 - Colin Bone #69
Colin was another to smash his previous PB, consistently running in the 1.57s. Colin was hampered by a suspected slipping clutch as the weekend progressed halting his progress.
Clutch servicing is a key element of our race bike prep and we know that was on point so we will be digging into Colins race starts and what is contributing to the high wear rate of the clutch as this has caught us out before.
Still it was great to bust out a new PB and we will be hoping he can repeat that feat when we attack Broadford for round 4 in November.
On track Images courtesy of Russel Colvin
Our team performed well and we are so proud of the results and effort that both our riders and mechanics and team made.
As always a big thank you to our sponsors who have thrown their support behind our team
