News 7 Aug 2016

Herfoss completes Morgan Park ASBK clean-sweep

Race two and overall win keeps Honda racer in title contention.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Crankt Protein Honda Racing’s Troy Herfoss capped off a dominant Morgan Park round of the 2016 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship presented by Motul Pirelli with the race two Superbike win.

With another brilliant victory in race two of the Queensland weekend, Herfoss kept his ASBK title hopes alive heading into Winton’s final round.

A lightning fast start to the 19-lap affair saw him pull 1.8s on the opening lap and then he was never headed from there, once again stretching to a lead of over five seconds in the early laps and maintaining it from there – his eventual winning margin at 3.202s. He also lowered his own lap record to 1m14.301s.

Herfoss led Maxwell and a resurgent Halliday, who held teammate Allerton at bay for the final place on the race podium. Falzon was close behind in fifth, followed by Stauffer, Elliott, Hampton, Frost and Hyde.

Jones was once again out of the running on the warm-up lap, the team unable to rectify the electrical issues that has halted their round altogether.

Overall Herfoss won from title challengers Maxwell and Allerton, as Maxwell now leads Herfoss by seven heading into Winton and Allerton a further four behind.

Yamaha-supported Luke Mitchell won the opening Supersport race of the round in Queensland, getting the better of Sam Clarke (Kawasaki) on the final lap to take a 0.600s victory at the duration of 15 laps.

Clarke led most of the laps, however it was pole-setter Mitchell who stormed to the win, with Clarke runner-up and a fast-finishing Chris Quinn (Yamaha) completing the podium.

Fourth was Troy Guenther (Yamaha), comfortably ahead of Lachlan Epis (Kawasaki) in his ASBK debut, while Ted Collins (Suzuki), Mark Chiodo (Triumph), Robbie Menzies (Kawasaki), Nic Liminton (Yamaha) and Ben Blyth (Yamaha) filled the top 10 placings.

It was a difficult opening leg for Callum Spriggs (Kawasaki), pinged with a jump-start penalty before ultimately crashing out at turn 10 on lap nine.

Race two of the Supersport ranks, after one red flag incident involving Quinn, saw Guenther strike back for a 2.874s victory over 14 laps, beating home Clarke and the impressive young Epis, who held down second and challenged for the lead in the opening stages.

Behind the podium trio it was opening race winner Mitchell who finished fourth, comfortably ahead of Collins in fifth. Positions six through 10 were filled by Menzies, Chiodo, Blyth, Anthony Quinn and Liminton.

Overall Mitchell hung on for the round win, ahead of Guenther and Clarke. In the championship standings with one round remaining Clarke leads by eight points from Guenther and Mitchell, another 14 in arrears.

The Moto3 round was dominated by rising start Tommy Edwards (Honda) for the overall, winning all three races and topping the round podium ahead of Tayla Relph (Honda) and Locky Taylor (Honda).

Winner of the Production class was Tom Toparis (Kawasaki) after sweeping the three races, winning the Up To 300s from Drew Sells and Justin Hall. The Over 300s was won by Callum Alderson (Yamaha) ahead of Jack Dawes (Yamaha) and Brandon Demmery (Yamaha).

The R3 Cup was won overall by Alderson, however it was Zac Levy (Yamaha) who bounced back from troubles in the opening leg to win races two and three. That was only enough for fourth however, leaving Hunter Ford (Yamaha) and Jack Passfield (Yamaha) to stand on the podium.

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