MotoGP
Well the MotoGP weekend has just wrapped up. It was a fantastic weekend with great weather on all but the Sunday which caused some havoc in the main MotoGP race as riders switched between wet and dry bikes. Our three outings in the Australian Superbike support races were exciting to be a part of. In race one I took a spill at Honda corner after breaking the lap record in the early running. This was followed by two 2nd places in the remaining two races. "The crash was caused by a small mistake on my part and unfortunately in the remaining two races small problems stood in the way of repeating the fast times that we achieved in race 1. I am very happy with the times we got down to this weekend as we were a long way under the previous record. ( best time a 1:34.0, previous record a 1:34.7) Once you get to the pace we are at now it is only very small things that can be the difference between first and second". Fortunately the MotoGP support races do not count towards the Australian Championship and we can use what we've learnt this weekend to improve our package for the upcoming Winton round in October.

ASC Rd5
Going back a week to Symmons Plains in Tasmania. It was an awesome event. On Sunday the sun shone onto a crowd of approximately 10,000 people. For our Robern Racing team the task would be difficult after qualifying on the 2nd row of the grid in 5th position. Despite this and a poor start in race one our race package proved itself once again as I was able to get through the traffic and close down on the two Stauffer brothers in the lead. By the time I made the move to 2nd Jamie stauffer had pulled out a small margin and though I closed in on the lead the laps ran out and I finished 2nd. In the process of chasing down the leader we also took out the inaugural lap record with a time of 53.6 seconds once again showing that Pirelli tyres are now setting the pace for others to follow.

I was determined to make up for the poor start in race 1 and succeeded by moving straight into 3rd position. However halfway through lap one the rear tyre spun up and I came oh so close to high siding. About 6 bikes came passed, every one hitting me on the way through. Once again there was a lot of work ahead. Finally I caught and passed Dan Stauffer for 2nd when another big moment out of the hair pin almost caused us both to crash as I missed a gear and he ran straight up the back of me. He again got in front and began to cover all his lines in a bid to hold his position. With just a handful of laps remaining I squeezed past, made it stick and pulled a safe gap to again finish 2nd.

Our Robern Racing Honda Team proved itself to have the best racing package but this weekend through a few small problems on the track in conjunction with a poor qualifying position we have finished 2nd overall. At the beginning of the year we could only hope of the kind of results that we have been having so all in the team are very happy. The gap to first in the championship is now 18 points so with two rounds remaining and 2 races per round we are still very much in touch to take the title. All pressure is on the leader and who would have thought 'privateers' like us would be the ones applying the pressure!

We would like to warmly welcome the support of new sponsors 'Alpine Performance Centre' who's dyno-tuning expertise is keeping us at the front of the field and major sponsor 'Sonnex Engineering' who have over 15 years engineering experience in the manufacturing industry and is an Australian owned and operated engineering company.