With much excitement surrounding the arrival of Honda’s 2017 model CBR1000RR SP2 ahead of the Darwin round of the Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) presented by Motul Pirelli, longtime followers of the sport domestically will recall when Teknic Honda rolled out the anticipated 2008 model for Glenn Allerton almost a full decade ago.

Under the management of Motologic owner Paul Free, Allerton and then teammate Jason O’Halloran started the season on the previous version before the team took delivery of the all-new model for round two in South Australia.

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It ended up being a dream weekend for Allerton and a breakthrough of sorts, setting a qualifying record of 1m05.773s and then going on to win both races on the Sunday. He won race one by 2.845s over Suzuki duo Shawn Giles and Robbie Bugden, then made it the double in race two by defeating defending champion Jamie Stauffer (Yamaha) by 0.586s, as Bugden crossed the line in P3 again.

“What can I say? Pole position and two wins shows how great this new bike is and it couldn’t have gone any better for us,” Allerton said at the time. “A big thanks to the Teknic Honda team – I can’t wait to get to Winton for more testing.”

Free, who has since led Honda’s 2008-2016 model Fireblades (including the up-spec SP version introduced from 2014) to no less than five more national-level championships between the ASBK, Australasian Superbike and FX-Superbike series, said that it was a remarkable way to roll out the new bike at the time.

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“The new bike and Glenn hit it off straight away and he put on an awesome display,” Free stated. “His starts were all picture perfect and he showed great personal strength. We did struggle to find a good set up for Jason [in fourth overall] and it wasn’t until the last race that we were able to find something that allowed him to dig in and move forward.”

Allerton went on to clinch his first-career championship that season and Honda’s first since 2005, in what was a controlled performance by he and the Teknic Honda squad. Fast-forward to now and we’ll see defending champion Troy Herfoss and 2010 title-winner Bryan Staring finally get their chance to race the 2017 edition from round four at Hidden Valley on 7-9 July. Will history repeat?