It seems like an eternity but round two of the 2016 Australasian Superbike Championship is upon as at Mallala Motorsport Park in South Australia, as well as the Saturday-run Australian FX-Superbike Championship. Until now, the series has been off the radar of sorts since round one.

Unfortunately I personally can’t make this one since I’m on the plane somewhere between Sydney and Perth en route to the Wanneroo round of the MX Nationals, but we’ll be covering it as well as we can remotely nonetheless. Plus, we are utilising Keith Muir on the ground for photography as always.

Thankfully for us, not only is tomorrow’s Australasian Superbike round livestreamed from SA, but so is today’s FX-Superbike event for the first time. And both will be televised. It’s an amazing feat for Terry O’Neill and co, not just for competitors but obviously the interested people who can’t make the round.

Image: Keith Muir.

After a bit of downtime between national road racing events we’ve got two major weekends of action, as round four of the Australian Superbike Championship will be held at Wanneroo in Western Australia next weekend. And after returning home on Monday, I’ll be heading all the way back next week for the ASBK.

World Superbike is on this weekend in Donington Park, which will be one of the most important stops of the season for Josh Brookes. On a circuit he can directly compare his Milwaukee BMW to the British title-winning Yamaha of last year, hopefully we see him make some headway with the bike.

Anthony West is also back on the grid with Pedercini Kawasaki following his stunning showing at Sepang, so hopefully he can carryover that form to Europe and further establish himself as a real option in WorldSBK for the remainder of this year or next.

All the seats may currently be full, however as we saw with Australia’s Josh Hook since Malaysia, few of those seats are actually safe on the lower tier teams. He’s lost out to Sheridan Morias, the experienced South African (who many are tipping took money to the team), but he’s still over the trying to pick up the pieces.

It’s one of the most frustrating aspects of racing in Europe these days, as money speaks most of all. And there’s little time to learn your craft – results are supremely important from the outset and if you have any difficulties (as Hook did with some early injuries), you can be overlooked before you even settle in (even though he was out-performing his teammate).

Source: Supplied.

The disruption must be immense and you begin to lose trust in the system. These guys are packing up their entire lives to go and race in Europe, usually for minimum wage if that, and they’re going all-in to try crack the big time in the world championship. Nothing’s guaranteed, no matter how good you are.

Hopefully Hook and more of the Aussies putting it all on the line internationally can make gains before the year’s out, set themselves up for 2017 to be in a better position and move on. It won’t be easy, but huge respect to those who are trying to make it happen.

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