Image: Foremost Media.

Yamaha Racing Team mainstay Cru Halliday’s podium result in Queensland Raceway’s third round of the 2023 Mi-Bike Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) ended in a ‘weird’ post-race crash, in which he was able to avoid any major injury.

Halliday managed to turn his fortunes around at the Ipswich venue by qualifying on the front row and charging to a pair of third-place results in the races, landing him P3 overall for the round.

However, it was contact directly after the chequered flag with overall winner Troy Herfoss (Penrite Honda Racing) that saw Halliday fall in a crunching fashion, swiftly attended to by the Racesafe medical crew, but being absent from the round podium celebrations.

“It was a weird situation,” Halliday told CycleOnline. “I came around turn one, everyone was rolling off the throttle, and I saw Troy on the left side of the track celebrating, waving to the crowd. I went to congratulate him on the right and as I pulled up next to him, he sort of came across into my line and rolled off way more than I thought he would’ve.

“I had nowhere to go, swerved to try to avoid him, and my brake lever smacked his ducktail. That endoed my bike and stalled it mid-air, so it come around on me and flung me to the ground. It wasn’t a massive crash, but because we weren’t going that fast the impact when I hit the ground was heavy.

“I thought I hurt my shoulder initially – hats off to Glenn Allerton for pulling up straight away, and Josh Waters as well, to check if I was alright – and that sort of masked some pain in my hip. Nothing’s broken, I’m still walking around today, and I hit my head pretty hard as well. It was just the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Still, Halliday left satisfied with his weekend in Queensland, making it two podiums in three rounds and climbing to third in the championship standings, now tied on points with GT Racing BMW’s three-time title winner Allerton.

“I said to the boys that if we could finish top three there we’d be laughing,” he recalled. “I’ve been starting to adapt to the faster-style tracks like Phillip Island, Sydney, and even The Bend, so the point-and-shoot nature of Queensland Raceway was almost like a bogey track for me now.

“I was closing the gap to Troy and Mike [Jones] in race one and was still right there in race two, so we’ve definitely made a massive jump forward. To get third for the round, I’m pumped with that, but it just sucks that I crashed after the race – at least I still got the points for finishing!”