Glenn Allerton inched to victory in Australian Superbike race one today. Image: Russell Colvin.

Words: Russell Colvin.

They may be the supporting act for the MotoGP event, but don’t let that fool you. The Australian Superbike and Supersport categories turned on a ripper days racing for the race going fans at Phillip Island’s Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix today.

In the Superbike class the day belonged to Glenn Allerton (Dynotech Maxima BMW), who stuck his BMW HP4 on pole position with a time of 1min33.141 ahead newly-crowned ASBK champion, Suzuki’s Wayne Maxwell who was 0.602 in arrears. Team Honda’s Jamie Stauffer was third.

Come race time it was Staffer storming off the line leading into the first turn, who led for the first opening laps before Maxwell took charge of the field with Allerton also moving up the order.

By about half race distance it turned into a two-horse race between the BMW and Suzuki pilots, who went toe-to-toe battling with one another. It wasn’t until the last lap when Allerton made his move on Maxwell, diving up the inside at Turn Four and went on to to win by 0.044 of a second.

“It was good race,” beamed Allerton. “I didn’t get the best starts, I had a bit of a problem with the clutch on the sighting lap so I was very gentle when I took off. One point I thought I had given them too much space, but it feels really good to have caught them back up.

“I was working away on the back of Wayne there for a while and started to get to the point where I thought ‘how am I going to catch this guy?’ but thankfully I did. The Dynotech Maxima NextGen BMW HP4 feels great. It’s an awesome package with the Pirelli tyres at the moment. I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

A distant third went to Team Volvo Group Suzuki’s Robbie Bugden, from Stauffer and Josh Hook. Allerton’s teammates Linden Magee was sixth on the BMW HP4 and Ben Nicolson, who was having his first crack on a Superbike, was seventh on the BMW S 1000 RR.

The first Prostock rider home and in eighth spot overall was Sean Condon on his Bikebiz/IPONE/Swann Insurance Kawasaki ZX-10R, who was having to deal with a delaminating left-hand side of the tyre.

“It was hard race that’s for sure,” said Condon. “Apart from the tyre issue the Bikebiz/IPONE/Swann Insurance Kawasaki worked fantastic and I’m really looking forward to coming back stronger tomorrow.”

In Supersport it was a battle of the Queenslanders between Aiden Wagner (Wagner Soil Testing/XXX Rated Suspension/YRD) and Callum Spriggs (Allsite Concrete Cutting/XXX Rated Suspension/YRD).

By the third lap the pair checked out in their own private battle that Wagner ended up winning. The winning move was made with five laps to run when Wagner blasted Spriggs into Doohan Corner and went onto victory by 2.831 seconds.

“I’m over the moon to get this victory,” said Wagner. “To be able to win on the biggest stage of the year in front of a big crowd is just purely unreal. Thanks heaps to my team who supplied a great bike. Roll on tomorrow.”

In third was Mad Mike Jones (XXX Rated Suspension/RIAA/Allsite Concrete Cutting), making it a Queenslander top three lock out. Jones, who was riding his spare bike because he threw his main bike away in a big way at the Hayshed in qualifying, was in combat with Victorian’s Ryan Taylor (SW Racing/YRD/Pirelli/Mupo), fourth today. Michael Blair (YRD/Finson/Blairbuild) rounded out the top five.

Race two of the Supersport kicks off tomorrow at 8:15am and the Superbikes will follow that around 8:55am.

2013 Tissot Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix
Phillip Island, Victoria

Superbike race one results:
1. Glenn ALLERTON
2. Wayne MAXWELL +0.044
3. Robert BUGDEN +2.803
4. Jamie STAUFFER +3.642
5. Josh HOOK +6.281
6. Linden MAGEE +13.759
7. Ben NICOLSON +19.237
8. Sean CONDON +20.245
9. Ben HENRY +21.851
10. David ANTHONY +26.75
11. Phil LOVETT +29.179
12. David TROTTER +45.638
13. Phillip CZAJ +52.869
14. Liam DANIELS +59.215
15. Mark HARRIS +01m00.5
16. Luke JOYCE +1m02.3
17. Sloane FROST +1m12.6
18. Adrian PIERPOINT +1m12.9
19. Alistair LOOMES +1m13.7
20. Stephen MION 1m+20.6

Supersport race one results:
1. Aiden WAGNER
2. Callum SPRIGGS +2.831
3. Mike JONES +12.659
4. Ryan TAYLOR +13.149
5. Michael BLAIR +13.273
6. Michael LOCKART +23.088
7. Mitch LEVY +23.101
8. Cam RUSSELL +31.209
9. Richard ELLIS +32.798
10. Josh SKYRING +53.705
11. Evan BYLES +54.006
12. Kieran MAHER +1m09.0
13. James FRUIN +1m12.7
14. Mark SCHUPPAN +1m12.7
15. Kane BURNS +1m15.6
16. Chris EARLY +1m15.6
17. David ROUGHLEY +1m15.9
18. Anthony VILLELLA +1m16.5
19. Clayton AFFORD +1m26.6
20. Jessica WATKINS +1m28.4

Click here for detailed results