26 August 2010
On the weekend, I competed in the 4th and 5th round of the Australian Superbike series, which was my final round for the season, held at QLD Raceway. I was hoping to maintain my position in the championship of 6th or even better I was hoping to move up to 5th place for the series.
It was a crazy 2 weeks leading up to the race meeting repairing my bike due to a crash at the Victorian Title round at Winton Raceway.
Fridays practice was wet and miserable, I had 2 sessions in the wet to practice before qualifying in the afternoon, I found it hard to get comfortable in the rain, with a lot of places on the track I needed to improve to help during the qualifying sessions. The first session came around and I again struggled to find a good feel on the track in the conditions, even though my times had improved, so had everybody else. I went out in the second qualifier hoping for a better result, again I was just not comfortable with the bike, I ended up qualifying 21st, which was dismal in my own standards, and I was very disappointed with this result and knew I had a tough weekend ahead of me now.
Saturday arrived and it was blue skies, I had 3 races for the day. Starting from the 5th row on the grid was always going to be a huge task. The first race I got a decent start and was keen to keep moving forward. I unfortunately got stuck behind a fellow racer and by the time I got passed the next group was too far ahead, I finished 14th for this race.
Race 2 I got another decent start and again got stuck behind the same competitor for too long, and lost touch with the group ahead, and finished 13th for the race.
Race 3 came around I was hoping for a good start to try and get into the group in front of me, I got a reasonable start and latched onto the group and was running with them until a few laps from then end where I made some silly mistakes and lost contact with the group, I again finished 13th. I was quite disappointed with how the weekend had panned out at this stage. I was hoping Sunday would bring me some better racing and results.
Sunday came around and as I lined up for the race start all I could think about was getting a good start and trying to achieve a top 10 result, unfortunately I got one of the worse starts of my career and lost plenty of positions. To top that off I even missed a gear into the final corner and lost some more places, at the end of the first lap I was relishing in around 23rd position. I made a few good passes and made it to 16th place, and then the red flag was bought out due to an incident. Unfortunately they declared the race and that was the position I sustained for the race.
Race 2 for the day got away with a better start than race 1, but I was still in the wrong group I would have liked to be in, I had a few rear end troubles and lost a few places in the last 2 laps, I finished 14th for the race.
Race 3 came and I was hoping to have a decent result, I got a better start and held onto the group in front of me, unfortunately I didn’t take the chances I needed to take to move through the pack, which meant that again I finished 14th.
Overall for the weekend I placed 14th, my worst result for the season. Worst of all it dropped me from 5th place for the series back to 8th for the year.
My goal for the season was top 10 which I achieved, but unfortunately a poor qualifying and race results hampered what could have a been a lot better result.
I would just like to thank Ross Gurd for towing my bike to and from QLD otherwise I would not have been competing.
I would like to thank all my sponsors Motorcycle RimStickers, MotoTrack Accessories, Motorcycle Race gear, Mornington Kawasaki, ASR Suspension, Ozzie Moto, Peninsula Ice, without these people I would not have been able to compete for the season.
Last of all I would like to say a massive thank you to my family, Especially to my Mum and Dad who have helped me so much all year and through all of the years, without them I wouldn’t be where I am today and am forever grateful.
Thanks
Bryce
#43
