Features 16 Jan 2016

Cycle 360

An all-access Australian view of road racing, presented by Alpinestars.

Hello and welcome to the first Cycle 360 of the year, written on the eve of the 2016 Troy Bayliss Classic in Taree. There’s a who’s who of Australian road racers alongside a heap of flat track talent, so once again it should be a neat event.

We’ll be heading to Old Bar for this year’s running, which will also include a host of internationals led by Superprestigio winner Brad ‘The Bullet’ Baker and defending TBC winner Jared Mees.

Team Honda Racing will have a major presence on Saturday, taking its semi for ASC champion Troy Herfoss and former team member Josh Hook, who will race for Grillini Kawasaki in WorldSBK this year.

Source: Supplied.

Source: Supplied.

Along with Herfoss and Hook, other road racing regulars in the All-Stars ranks will be Ant West (who we interviewed this past week), Damian and Alex Cudlin, Broc Parkes and Robbie Menzies, who works with Bayliss in his development.

Other than the Bayliss Classic, it was a big news week to start the year. Yamaha Racing Team announced it will return to the Australasian Superbike Championship with Wayne Maxwell, Glenn Allerton and Cru Halliday in 2016.

It’s an interesting decision from Yamaha to remain in the ASC, but not really a surprising one. The next decision to be made is whether they’ll enter motoSBK under Troy Bayliss Events when it gets underway later in the year (there’s still a full season of ASBK to go beforehand.

When Team Honda Racing announced that Herfoss and Jamie Stauffer would be returning, they stopped short of confirming what series and still haven’t disclosed it. Some rumours say ASC, others convinced they’re reverting to ASBK, so watch this space.

What is exciting at this point is the fact that two of the top Supersport racers from last year will be stepping up to the premier Superbike ranks – Brayden Elliott and Michael Blair.

Elliott’s transition essentially sees a competitive rider back on the GSX-R1000, which is a huge boost for racing domestically even if it’s not a full factory entry. It will have the involvement of Phil Tainton and Shawn Giles.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Meanwhile the fact that Blair is also stepping up on a private R1 adds depth to the class (hopefully all of these guys are racing together one way or another) and I’m certain both will shine amongst the sport’s best locally.

New ASC Supersport champion Callum Spriggs will be remaining in Supersport, but makes the stunning switch to Cube Racing on board a Kawasaki.

Cube Racing of course is aligned with the DesmoSport Ducati team of Troy Bayliss and Ben Henry, which bodes well for Spriggs’ future alongside Menzies in the development squad.

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