Image: Andy McGechan.

Suzuki-mounted Sloan Frost dominated the opening round of the 2016 New Zealand Superbike Championship at Mike Pero Motorsport Park in Christchurch at the weekend, winning all three races as GSX-R1000 riders filled the podium.

Fresh from winning the Formula One class in the three-round pre-national Suzuki Series, the MC2 Racing Fujitsu TSS Red Baron Suzuki rider managed to kick on from that career breakthrough performance to dominate racing at Ruapuna.

“I’ve never taken a win at Ruapuna before, so just coming here and getting such a solid result is great,” said 34-year-old Frost. “Then to win the GP race and earn a major title is great too. The bike has been hooking-up well. I nearly ran over a lapped rider at one stage, but it all worked out in the end.

“I knew the riders behind me were battling hard and I figured that would slow them down too, so perhaps that helped me. Now that I’ve ‘gotten over the mountain of not having won at Ruapuna, now I can build on this at the tracks coming up; ones that I have enjoyed success on in the past.”

It was a Suzuki 1-2-3 in the Superbike class with Christchurch’s former 600cc national champion John Ross finishing runner-up each time and Hamilton’s nine-time former Superbike champion Andrew Stroud – the 47-year-old father-of-10 making a comeback to the sport after retiring two years ago – firing-up again to take the third step on the podium.