Glenn Allerton won the first ASBK race of the season in Queensland Raceway. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

Next Gen Motorsports BMW’s Glenn Allerton won the opening race of Queensland Raceway’s third round of the QBE Australian Superbike Championship this afternoon.

Team Suzuki’s Robbie Bugden kept Allerton honest in the early laps, before teammate Wayne Maxwell made a mid-race charge to overtake him for the position in the later stages.

A new lap record was logged by Allerton on lap two with a 1m08.531, with both Maxwell and Bugden also lapping in the 1m08.5s.

Allerton maintained his pace in the 1m08 bracket well past the halfway point to break the Suzuki charge, going on to win his third consecutive ASBK race of the season.

“In hindsight I probably should have let them lead at the start, but I didn’t even want to let them get a sniff of it,” Allerton said. “I was like, this is mine, so yeah, I saw the lap board go out to +1, +1.2 and I kept pushing to break away.

“A big thanks to the boys, the team worked really hard, so thanks to them for their hard work – it’s paying off. We’ll put some new Pirelli tyres in and we’ll be heaps better for race two!”

Maxwell made his way past Bugden on lap 13, eventually crossing the stripe 3.319 seconds behind Allerton and 1.5 ahead of Bugden.

“I was very consistent in the race, my outright speed hasn’t been that great but we can normally just plug away,” Maxwell reflected.

“With about five to go, we didn’t quite have it and I got a bit of arm pump. There’s nothing wrong with the bike, I just need to work on myself for race two.”

Bugden was satisfied with his early race performance, but will be looking to maintain his lap speed when race two gets underway later this afternoon.

“That was everything I had right there and it was quite encouraging,” Bugden commented. “I discovered quite a few places where I was stronger than Glenn, but also places where he was stronger than me.

“I didn’t come here to finish third, but I’ll take that and we’ll see if we can get Glenn off that top step this afternoon.”

Team Honda Racing’s Josh Hook rode to an impressive fourth, comfortably ahead of injured teammate Jamie Stauffer as he salvaged points despite a heavy testing crash last Friday.

Sixth was top privateer Chas Hern for the CMR Racing Suzuki team, another comfortable performance for the Superbike class rookie.

Glenn Scott (Team InsureMyRide Racing Honda) got the better of Linden Magee (Next Gen Motorsports BMW) and Beau Beaton (Racers Edge Performance Suzuki) in a tight battle for seventh, while 10th belonged to Kiwi Sloan Frost on his privateer BMW.

2013 Australian Superbike Championship
Round three – Queensland Raceway

Superbike race one results:
1. Glenn ALLERTON
2. Wayne MAXWELL 3.319
3. Robert BUGDEN 4.823
4. Josh HOOK 6.52
5. Jamie STAUFFER 13.004
6. Chas HERN 20.622
7. Glenn SCOTT 25.003
8. Linden MAGEE 25.108
9. Beau BEATON 25.254
10. Sloan FROST 33.703
11. Ben HENRY 40.053
12. Phil LOVETT 50.992
13. Adam SENIOR 1m03.2
14. Chris McMILLAN 2 laps
DNF. Sean CONDON 13 Laps
DNF. Brayden CARR 17 Laps