Callum Alderson Racing press release:

Finally begun to settle down after a massive weekend at Wakefield for round 1 of the Yamaha Motor Finance & Insurance R3 Cup and the Over 300 Production Championship, alongside Round 2 of the ASBK Championship.

I’d really put in the hard yards on fitness in the lead up and I’d set myself some massive goals for the weekend and had high expectations. Having had no chance to test on the brand new Yamaha YZF-R3 before the event though was going to make it interesting. Thankfully having raced at Wakefield last year though I was reasonably confident that I’d be able to get comfortable on the R3 quite quickly.

Showers for the first ride of the new YZF-R3

After a few showers on Friday morning we made the late call to get fit wets to our spare wheels. This proved to be a good decision as Practice 1 was run poor conditions in the wet. It was great to be back out there even if it was wet, I finished 3rd as all the R3 cup riders where coming to grips with the 2.2km circuit and their brand new bikes!

Thankfully the weather soon changed for the better and the remainder of the day was dry, giving me the chance I needed to really get a feel for what the bike was capable of. We worked pretty solidly for the remainder of the day with the crew at GASD (Glenn Allerton Suspension Development) getting my suspension dialed in and dropping my times into the low 10’s.

Saturday was straight into qualifying and the weather was looking on point to say the least!

While a good spot on the grid is important, so is race set up. So we used more of our the in early qualifying to do further suspension testing on the YRD/SignPro/BlueGorilla Yamaha R3. I qualified for the weekend’s races in 4th on the second row just behind Sam Condon in the Production class, and 3rd behind Zac Levy and Hunter Ford on the first row in the R3 cup.

Race 1 Production

Race 1 of the Production championship was on like Donkey Kong from lap 1 where Brandon Demmery, Ty Lynch and I all battling it out for 3rd position on our YZF R3’s. Brando though got the better of us with the open spec bike against or cup spec bikes and managed pull a decent gap on myself and Ty. I was happy to finish 2nd in the Over 300 class for this race and confident I’d be able to close the gap to the leaders by end of the round.

Race 1 Yamaha Motor Finance & Insurance R3 Cup

The Inaugural Yamaha Motor Finance & Insurance R3 Cup race was run and won from the start by Zac Levy as he broke an early lead and was able to keep out of the battle for 2nd between Hunter Ford and myself. The race could’ve gone better for me but I was happy to bring home 2nd for the first race.

Sunday morning we were expecting showers

Again prepared the wets, thankfully though they weren’t needed as the rain held off and the sun came out in time for race 2 of the production championship. It was a strong race from the start. I managed to close the gap to the leaders substantially from the race before and finished in 3rd overall and 2nd for the Over 300 championship and cutting my lap time down to a 1:08.6, 1 second faster than my previous PB. Pretty chuffed for a bike fresh out of the box!

Race 2 R3 Cup

Race 2 in theYamaha Motor Finance & Insurance R3 Cup was great from the start. Hunter Zac and I never being more than 1 second apart so it was down to a final corner dash for the win, the rider with the right line and drive out of the final turn was going to be first over the line. I’d been sitting in 3rd most of the race and knew I was strong in all the braking zones, Zac went deep into the last corner and I went even deeper from about 15m behind him. I was able to get in front of both Zac and Hunter but unfortunately the late braking forced me to run it a bit wide on the exit, then left me caught in a position where I had to trying to get around a back marker, chopping the throttle as they moved right over to the wall. All 3 of us being separated by .183 over the line, unfortunately I took the bottom spot on the podium, but we all did our fastest lap of the race on the last lap, even after 60 laps on the Pirelli Rubber!

Race 3 Production

Race 3 in the production class was similar to race 2, the lap times where slightly slower though as the heat made the track a little slippery but George from GASD had the bike set up well so I had plenty of front end confidence to brake late and carry lots of lean!!

Race 3 R3 Cup

The final R3 cup race was the hardest of the weekend after a crash on lap 1 causing a red flag, where we had to then sit on the grid for 7 minutes with cold tyres, it didn’t take long to get heat into the Pirelli’s though and they performed well from the time the lights went out!

Zac got away but not far, Hunter and I where in a battle the whole race right down to the line but I showed my pace and used my late braking and front end confidence to my advantage and shut the door on any attempts made by other riders and was able to bring it home in 2nd!

A great result

great result a brand new bike I’d never ridden before the Friday practice. Taking out 6 podiums in 6 races and 2nd place for the round in both theYamaha Motor Finance & Insurance R3 Cup & the Over 300 Production Class. Absolutely stoked is an understatement!

Loving the feel of the new Yamaha YZF-R3, it certainly doesn’t disappoint in handling or performance. When matched with the Mupo Suspension, Akrapovic exhaust and Pirelli Super Corsa tyres it really becomes a great package, capable of far more than you’d expect for a $7,900 off the shelf package. The team at Yamaha are to be congratulated for putting together such a great affordable race package.

A massive thanks

Again to the Crew at Yamaha for supplying such awesome bikes and all the team behind the scenes at ASBK and the race safe medical team and especially my awesome sponsors and dad and mum for getting this all together.

#Yamaha #YRD #R3Cup #SignPro #BlueGorilla #arai #Cassons #MotoTrackAccessories #Dainese #Akropovic #MUPO #YMF #ASBK