KTM Australia press release:

KTM’s Angus Reekie tasted the bitter lows and the sweet highs of motorsport – twice – at the weekend’s Swann Insurance Australian Superbike Championship and Formula Xtreme round at Mallala.

After dominating the opening stop on the calendar at Sydney Motorsport Park seven weeks ago, Reekie’s Round Two campaign began disastrously when he fell victim to cold tyres in Mallala’s fast left-hand sweeper on Saturday, and crashed out of the first race.

After racing (figuratively) into Adelaide to source a replacement for a crash-damaged part, Reekie returned in time for the third and final Naked bike F1 race on Saturday.
Forced to start from the rear of the field after missing the second race, Reekie let loose the full potential of his KTM 1290 Super Duke R and stormed through the field to finish the day with a spectacular win.

Unfortunately for Reekie, Sunday saw further difficulties after he “cooked the clutch” at the start of his first race, and he was forced to limp home in second place in the combined pro Twins/naked bike category, just over three seconds behind Ducati-mounted James Arnold.

Reekie’s attempts to fix the problem came to nought when he was forced to retire from Race Two, but the 2014 ASC Naked Bike Champion was back out on track for the third.
In a carbon copy of the previous day’s performance, Reekie converted his rear-of-field start into a win, showcasing the Super Duke R’s street-fighting qualities to steal the lead from Arnold on the penultimate lap of the race.

Angus Reekie – “The weekend didn’t quite go to plan, there were lows but there were some highs too. We crashed in the first race on Saturday, missed out on the second because we had to go into Adelaide, then got out there for the last race and had to start from last. We ended up coming right through and winning that race which was great fun.
Then on Sunday, I cooked the clutch off the start of the first race and sort of half-nursed it home to get second, and then we tried to fix the problem with what we had there, but it didn’t fix it, so we didn’t finish that the second. We tried something else and fixed it for the last one, and ended up coming right through from last again and winning it, which was awesome.
It makes championships a really difficult prospect for us now. But we’ll see how we go, I believe that you can drop your worst round, so hopefully that’s the case and hopefully that’s the worst round we’ll have this year!

Performance was the bike was really good all weekend, we had pace and we were knocking on the door of the lap record. Obviously two rider errors cost us.
Coming from the back is the best fun though, it’s probably the best racing I’ve had in a long time. You’ve constantly got a carrot dangling in front of you so it makes you try extra hard. I had an awesome time picking my way through and trying to be safe at the same time!”

For more information on KTM motorcycles visit www.ktm.com.au or www.facebook.com.KTMAustralia.