Image: Russell Colvin.

The opening YMF Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli race of the weekend saw DesmoSport Ducati’s Mike Jones convert his pole position to a first race win of the year at Barbagallo.

Jones was able to withstand all kinds of pressure from Wayne Maxwell (Yamaha Racing Team) across the 20-lap duration, seizing the lead into turn one on lap 11 and never headed.

Jones won by 0.307s from Maxwell, with Glenn Allerton (Yamaha Racing Team) overcoming initial leader Troy Herfoss (Crankt Protein Honda Racing) and Daniel Falzon (JD Racing Yamaha) for third, five seconds in arrears of the leaders.

Sixth was Ben Burke (SA Kawasaki BCperformance), holding Cru Halliday (Yamaha Racing Team) at bay, who also fended off Brayden Elliott (Suzuki) and Jamie Stauffer (Crankt Protein Honda Racing). The top 10 was rounded out by local Ben Stronach (Kawasaki).

The lap record also went to Falzon at 55.446s after he ran as high as third in the mid-stages before reaching lapped traffic, bettering Allerton’s previous benchmark of 55.533s from 2011.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Earlier, pole-setter Sam Clarke (Kawasaki) pleased the Western Australian fans with a controlled opening race victory in the Supersport ranks.

Clarke sprinted away from the field in the early laps and maintained that advantage for the 16-lap duration, eventually crossing the line 2.131s ahead of Luke Mitchell (Yamaha) and a further couple of seconds ahead of Troy Guenther (Yamaha).

On his way to the win Clarke also took a new lap record with a 57.184s on lap two, beating Jamie Stauffer’s 57.277s from 2006. Rounding out the top five in race one were Callum Spriggs (Kawasaki) and Nic Liminton (Yamaha).