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By Tim Gibbes:
An overcast & cool breeze didn’t deter 130 hardy road racers from giving their best at the Taupo Motor Racing Circuit yesterday. The event was the penultimate round of the Suzuki Championship Road Race Series.
Only one third of Dennis Charlett’s wishes came true. He wanted to win all 3 A grade races – he won the last race & placed second in the first two. But statistics don’t show the real battles between him & arch rival cum team mate Dean Fulton, riding identical Suzuki GSXR1000’s.
First race Fulton led for 4 laps, Charlett slipped by to lead till the 9th lap when Fulton made a now or never pass to win by 1.2 seconds. Race two & Fulton got the start while Charlett snapped at his heels the whole way, as well as making the fastest lap, but it was Fulton by a whisker at the finish line. Third race, Charlett was out for revenge. Fulton grabbed the holeshot, led for 8 of the 12 laps, before Charlett made the charge to the front, setting fastest lap of the day of 40.014 seconds, leading Fulton home by 1.6 seconds.
Meanwhile in their slipstream, Ronnie De Wys (Putaruru) & Glen Jeffery (Auckland) were having problems with a buzzing busy bee in their midst. Terry Fitzgerald form New Plymouth riding a DESL Suzuki GSXR600 would not give up to bikes nearly twice the engine capacity.
First race Jeffery & his Honda 954 took 3rd from De Wys & his thundering Aprilia RSV1000, with Fitzgerald 5th, less than a second separating 3rd & 4th places. Second race & the busy bee was at it again, holding 4th place for most of the race until an unusually slow starting De Wys ground his way up from 6th on the first lap to just pip Jeffery to take 3rd, Jeffery 4th & Fitzgerald leading home the Pirelli 600 class with James Cardow (Kawasaki ZX6R) & Chris Wiltshire (Yamaha R6) 2nd & 3rd in the 600 class.
Third race & the busy bee led the big bikes for 3 laps before De Wys got by, then on the 7th lap Jeffery powered by, but only beating Fitzgerald by .2 of a second.
The Dunlop Tyres Streetstock 150 class saw 2 experience campaigners – Stew Graham from Wanganui & William Richards from Hamilton rubbing elbows with a 14 year old schoolboy, Karl Morgan (Auckland) who bested the “old hands” each time, but .1 to .9 of a second is by no means a clear win, which was about a the margin between the 3 each race. But the race for the class series overall win at the final round at Manfeild on September 22nd will not be over until the finish of the last race as the points tally now shows Stew Graham (Kawasaki KR150) with 231 points, William Richards (Suzuki RG150) with 229, & Karl Morgan at 219.
Morgan is one of 3 very young road race riders from the Suzuki Championship Road Race Series to be selected for special training & coaching in the Motorcycling New Zealand “High Performance Elite Athletes” programme. The others are Hayden Fitzgerald from New Plymouth (currently 2nd in the F3 Plus class of the series) & Steven Wood from Blenheim who contests the Streetstock 150 class.
The D grade Buell Motorcycles first year Novice races are again a battle to the end with New Plymouth dairy farmer Ross Brown (Kawasaki ZX750) being hassled all the way by schoolboy Bradley Morrison from Ngaio riding a diminutive Kawasaki KR150. Brown leads with 213 points to 195 of Morrison.
Final round of the 2002 Suzuki Championship Road Race Series is at Manfeild on September 22nd, when 180 riders are expected.
Racing will be followed by an Awards Evening for the series trophies & prize presentation.
Full race by race results & series points for all 10 classes can be found on website :Motorcyclesport.co.nz : under navigation bar “2002 Suzuki Road Race Series”.
A 5 minute documentary of the highlights from this round will be screened on TV1's Shell Helix Motor Sport show on Sunday 25th August.
