State Round 3 Bunbury 13/5/07
Round 3 of this Years State Round Series travelled South of Perth to Bunbury's Shrubland Park. For those who had raced there before the pristine prepped track didnt fool anyone ! Practice gave all the riders a look at this new arena but by race 1, it would be slightly rougher, by race 2 it would get harder to hang on, and race 3 was going to be a torturous nightmare on a track that whoops up quite severely over the days racing.
Bunbury Motorcycle Club has had a change at the helm of the club and certainly ran the best round of the series with Scrutineering starting early, Practice right on schedule, full flag roster in place and well prepared canteen. The track and facilities were just brilliant and its a credit to the committe of the club who had obviously put in a huge amount of hard work, and been rewarded for their efforts.
The Clubman Quad numbers had diminished this round due to some of the riders suffering injuries, but 12 was still a good field with Scott Higson,Ben Papas and Dean Terry showing fine form. Ben must be congratulated for not only his first race win, but a win for the round which should take him up the ladder on the points table. Ben battled hard in the first race to pass Scott Higson and really put in a huge effort to get his first race win, this seemed to uncork his energy and confidence and all riders where then left in his wake for the remainder of the day.
The intermediate class had some of the most talented riders taking on this torturous Shrubland Park circuit, racing within the Profield, the intermediates held their own and you could barely tell the classes apart. Dave Sanders won & Tom Stevens
always puts on a great show over the infield tabletop with Michael Harcourt's consistent finishes keeping him in 3rd place.Taylor Milling had mixed fortunes for the day but along with Stevens is showing some fantastic riding skills on all surfaces.
Pro Quads were what everyone had travelled down from Perth to see. Points were tight across the whole series and Anthony Yewers had declared that this round was his, knowing it would rev Chris Brenton and current Championship leader Chad McKay up, with Josh Higson, Glen Ashworth,Colin Jefferies, Graham Terry and Ryan Lancaster in the mix, you just knew this round was going to be monumental in deciding who was where in the scheme of the rounds.
The First Race bought me goosebumps, hearing the familiar sounds of aluminium bumping and grinding around the first and second corners, a stack of riders jumping side by side with Chris Brenton having a problem on the start gate, then we saw an absolute delight, a stream of riders committed to clear the largest of the jumps, the infield tabletop, there were screams and cheers from the crowd as one after another all riders cleared the jump and flew up into the next corner. Two seasons ago there were only a few riders attempting this jump.
Ant had raced out to a good lead, with Chris Brenton working his way past almost everyone in the field, Ryan,Glen and Chad were setting an awesome pace with Chris attaching to the back of this group. The gap between Ant and Ryan was closing going into the 6th lap and Chris and Chad were going hammer and tongs, a last ditch effort by Brenton over the finish jump and a drag to the finish line saw McKay disappointed to finish in 5th
1st Anthony Yewers
2nd Ryan Lancaster
3rd Glen Ashworth
4th Chris Brenton
5th Chad McKay
Race two had the Quad part of the crowd head down to the first corner to watch the mayhem with Colin Jefferies somersaulting between bikes mid pack,Ryan Lancaster landing badly and losing the front runner pace and again Ant and Chris off to a flying start. This tussle of horsepower lasted over 5 laps with Brenton closing the gap as the last lap board appeared, you could feel it was going to be this lap he would take the lead, Ant fought every corner and jump to stay in front, but it was over the back fenceline, Brenton accelerated higher and faster over the table top and was in front of Anthony Yewers. Josh Higson was battling it out with Glen Ashworth and Ryan Lancaster to finish in that order. Chad Mckay had a bike problem due to the first corner mahem and was unable to finish the race.
Race 3 had everyone's attention, as it was thought it was going to be a rerun of the second race between Brenton and Yewers. The start was free of incident but the track was now quite whooped and it would take a supreme effort to keep up the pace of the previous 2 races. Brenton and Yewers tussled it out again, but it was the McKay/Higson rivalry that had everyones attention, 17 year old Higson was having a brilliant run at this round, and no matter how hard Mckay tried Higson was all over the back of him looking for the pass, Mckay at some point crashed leaving Higson a clear run at chasing down Yewers, unfortunately Yewers made a novelty of errors and with him stopped on the track a few times allowing 5 riders to pass him. Ashworth also found himself at the back of the field getting stuck on a berm. Lancaster pulling into the pits with a recurring shoulder injury.
Brenton took the easy win with Higson 2nd, Graham Terry 3rd, Roman Czubek in 4th and Colin Jefferies 5th.
State Round 3 was all we as spectators were hoping for, great racing, amazing passing, great drama, a few mechanical probs and small crashes which from a spectators point of view, made the day the most exciting event of the year.
Round 4 will be the Quad State Championships at Coastal Park on July 15th which will see
the Quads out on their own, the Pro/inter/Clubman riders competing for round 4 points, Vets 35+ competing for a state title,Junior 200cc and Junior 90cc competing for their titles, and also the women racing.
June 17th Will see the women Quad riders compete for their state Championship at Byford, anyone interested to compete should contact us asap.
Unofficial results for the Day
1st Chris Brenton 68
2nd Anthony Yewers 61
3rd Josh Higson 57
4th Glen Ashworth 51
5th Graham Terry 47
Overall unofficial results for the series
1st Chris Brenton 195
2nd Anthony Yewers 177
3rd Chad McKay 159
4th Ryan Lancaster 156
5th Glen Ashworth 147
6th Josh Higson 131
7th Colin Jefferies 124
8th Roman Czubek 108
9th Graham Terry 89
10th Grant Gaisford 86
11th Jarred Mansell 78
12th Clint Mansell 77
13th Brett Petricevich 64
14th Kevin Fanning 50
Results are now available on the following link
http://mylaps.com/results/showevents.jsp?org=7970