Swann Insurance Kawasaki press release:

Swann Insurance-supported Kawasaki racer Matt Walters rode his way to a season-best sixth-place finish at Darwin’s fourth round of the 2017 Australian Superbike Championship at Hidden Valley Raceway.

Aboard his ZX-10R machine, Walters admitted his qualifying struggles as he logged 12th-place on Saturday in the Superbike class with a time of 1m07.501s, however his consistent pace was an early strength.

Turning things around for Sunday’s race day, it was two consistent eighth-place finishes that saw him secure his best overall ranking of the year in the blistering Northern Territory conditions.

“We struggled a fair bit with qualifying and we couldn’t get the outright one-lap pace,” Walters said. “But the boys got it together and we were more consistent through the races which helped us.

“We ended up with two eighths, which put us in sixth overall and that’s the best result I’ve had this year. Now we can only build on that and keep pushing forward.

“I’d like to thank Brad Swallow and Glenn Willing as last week we had a fair bit of stuff going on and I rang them with probably two or three days left before we had to leave and they dropped everything.

“They came and gave us a hand and we’ve had a good weekend, so without those two people I wouldn’t have been able to make it here or do this.”

Looking to carry the momentum into Morgan Park’s fifth round of the series, Walters will now focus on fine-tuning his preparations to suit the 25-27 August event in Queensland.

“I haven’t been to Morgan Park so I’ll have to do some laps I reckon, but we’ll endeavour to try and practice on some smaller tracks and go to Morgan Park and see how we go,” he explained. “We’ll keep pushing on and we’ll just see where we end up.”

Walters now moves up the Superbike rankings to 11th in the championship, just three points outside of the top 10 in what is a talent-packed field for 2017.

Round five of the 2017 Australian Superbike Championship will take place at Morgan Park in Queensland on 25-27 August. Like Matt Walters Racing on Facebook and visit www.asbk.com.au for further information on the series.