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SUZUKI NZ Ltd: - PRESS RELEASE
Six races, five wins and a new Teretonga Production Superbike lap record is Suzuki’s latest haul of race success with its GSX-R1000: in New Zealand competition.
Despite a strong challenge from Yamaha and Honda, who have both entered new machines in the New Zealand Production Superbike Championship, the older GSX-R1000 continues right on winning.
While Suzuki has a new GSX-R1000 due for release around March, its riders are currently campaigning a machine, which is effectively a two-year old bike.
But that hasn’t stopped three times Isle of Man TT winner and double New Zealand Formula Two Champion Bruce Anstey from taking an early lead in the 2005 New Zealand Superbike Production Championship.
Heading to the non-championship Battle of the Streets meeting at Wanganui on Boxing Day, Wellington-based Anstey leads the National Championship chase with 115 points from Auckland Suzuki stalwart Ray Clee on 103 while six times New Zealand Champion Tony Rees from Whakatane has his Yamaha YZF-R1 threatening in third place on 99 points.
Suzuki knows only too well that Rees is a real threat to its domination of the New Zealand championship – after all he did win four consecutive Open Sports Production Championships on Suzuki’s GSX-R750 before switching to Yamaha late in 1999.
Meantime defending champion Andrew Stroud has had an uncharacteristically slow start to the championship on his Suzuki and is in fourth place after the first two rounds, 25 points behind championship leader Anstey.
It was Rees who got the ball rolling on his Yamaha, winning the first championship race at Ruapuna before Anstey’s wet weather expertise came to the fore, resulting in his winning the next two races.
Stroud, who has had a long run of success at Ruapuna in past seasons, couldn’t take a trick this time. He was forced off the track in the first race, then suffered a badly fogged visor in the second race, finishing fourth, then bogged down on the start line of the third race, and had to stage a come-from-behind effort just to grab fifth.
However, Stroud was fired up at Teretonga a week later and won the first two races after close battles with Rees, both times making his final pass on the Whakatane Yamaha man on the last lap.
In the first race he made his final challenge for the lead in the flat-out first corner off the end of the long main straight; in race two he nailed Rees in the final turn, entering the straight. In the process he broke his own lap record of 59.98 seconds, set on a Britten V1000, establishing the new mark at 59.061 seconds, tantalizingly close to breaking the 58-second barrier at Teretonga.
In the final race, both were caught out with the wrong tyre choice, opting for slicks just as the rain came. Anstey proved a better weather forecaster, fitting wet weather tyres and scored another win.
Consistency is the word that best describes two times New Zealand Champion Ray Clee’s efforts on his Suzuki. From six races he has scored three seconds, two thirds and a fifth, enough to keep him ahead of Yamaha challenger Rees in the points.
New Zealand Production Superbike Championship points (after two of five rounds):
1. Bruce Anstey (Wellington), Suzuki GSX-R1000 115
2. Ray Clee (Auckland), Suzuki GSX-R1000 103
3. Tony Rees (Whakatane), Yamaha YZF-R1 99
4. Andrew Stroud (Hamilton), Suzuki GSX-R1000 90
5. Dean Fulton (Mt Maunganui), Honda CBR1000 78
6. Jared Love (Hamilton), Honda CBR1000 59
