Next Gen Motorsports’ Glenn Allerton lived up to his tag of favourite as he took pole and maximum points from the weekend’s AirRoad Australian Superbike Championship opener.

CycleOnline.com.au spoke to the two-time champion about the changed format and new competition, along with breaking down an ultimately successful outing.

Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

The first round of the ASBK saw a condensed two-day program replace the regular three-day format. How did this affect your preparation and mindset going into it?

For me, I think it is actually better. I don’t think we need to do three-day meetings, I think you can still achieve the same stuff in a two-day meeting. You can get straight into qualifying in the afternoon of the first day, and I think that’s fine.

I guess if you’ve got a new bike and you’re developing it, and haven’t been to that circuit, the three days would be good, but for me a two-day meet works fine. I had a good meeting and I find the format there to be great.

On the opening day we saw a fairly healthy battle on the timesheets between yourself and Mike Jones. Were you surprised by the speed of Mike as a rookie on the Superbike?

It was close. I didn’t really see Mike on the track the whole time, but on the timesheets he put in a really good effort. I don’t think that the conditions were ideal – the track was very dirty, and the lap times weren’t where they needed to be, but you can only do the best you can do.

As far as I was going, we were experimenting a lot with different settings and trying to make it handle a bit better, and searching for a bit more grip in the front. We made some headway towards the end.

Walk us through the opening race, which eventually would stand as the only Superbike race of the weekend. A win in the bag and maximum points must be satisfying?

I basically got the holeshot from the start and led the race early. The gap was quite small for the first five laps and I tried to push on through the middle of the race where I got the gap out to almost two seconds. I had a problem in the last corner and missed a gear, and almost ran off the track, and then on the following lap it happened again to me in the same corner.

I lost a whole bunch of time so Mike caught up to the back of me, I think he got back to 0.8 or 0.9 seconds on the back. I pushed hard again on the last three or four laps and I think I probably got a better run through the lappers. The first lapper I caught held me up a lot and I lost time, but the next set I managed to pull away and get a decent gap.

It wasn’t a perfect race by any means, I made quite a few mistakes, personally, throughout the race, but we still had enough of an advantage to maintain the lead. Whenever I needed to push I could open up a gap on the pit board so I was happy with that.

It is all good experience, and I had a good time riding on the Pirellis. It’s good to have that feeling back that I’m used to and I love.

Image: Alex Gobert.

A storm front moved in and resulted in buckets of rain falling in the area prior to race two. Officials eventually called off the remaining races; the right decision in your mind?

I went out and had a look with race control, and I agreed that they were right, that the conditions were too difficult to continue. By the time we got the drains flowing, because there were a few blockages, the rest of the track had dried out a lot. The problem we would have is that there was actually rivers running across the track from turn one to the exit of turn two in about four different spots, plus a few others.

By the end of the race 90 percent of the track would have been dry but there still would have been those rivers. Definitely there was a risk that there would be accidents and someone could have gotten hurt.

Even with the reduced racing program you managed to take the maximum points on offer for the class for the weekend. A good start but still plenty of work ahead of you I’d imagine, with the shorter championship placing extra value on every race?

It’s good to have the buffer but it’s not going to be easy. Anything can happen – it is motor racing. You can have the smallest little issue that can cost you. We need to go to Darwin and be really competitive and try to score maximum points.

You can’t ever write anything off as a given, you need to put in the work and make sure you do the best practice and qualifying that you can and then put it together in the race. I’m going to be on the job at the next round.

There were plenty of new faces on the grid this weekend, with good entry fee incentives and the like attracting a healthy number of riders. Is it good to be able to introduce some new names into the mix?

It’s good for the young privateers to get their chance to run at the front, and I guess they probably learn a lot more by running at the front. Realistically I want to see everybody at the race, but it’s just not the way it is right now.

There’s a rebuilding phase that we’re going through and a whole lot of things out of control of the riders and teams. The riders and teams need to realise that we are the sport. We’re better off all being in together and controlling our own destiny.