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The 4th and penultimate round of the Australian SuperBike Championship was staged at South Australia's Mallala circuit last weekend, July 27/28/29.
A large and very enthusiastic crowd witnessed Victoria's Shawn Giles dominate the whole weekend by taking pole followed by 3 race wins from as many starts. Craig Coxhell and Jamie Stauffer threatened Giles at times but Shawn always had the edge in the closing stages of each race.
Redwing HRC's Alex Gobert qualified fifth on the Honda CBR929 and scored two fifths and a fourth in the races, "I came here expecting to do well this weekend and was reasonably happy with qualifying but would have preferred to have been on the front row. Nevertheless we took some good results away from Mallala this weekend and I got the Fireblade around here faster than we ever have before. We dipped into the 1 minute 8s during the races. The bike felt good and it is great that we are moving forward with the development of the bike."
Another Fireblade pilot on the pace this weekend was 22 year old Steven Fisher from Ballina, NSW who was 8th quickest in qualifying. For race 1 Fisher's mechanics had installed new discs which unfortunately binded up a little which resulted in Steven losing a little confidence, however he came back later in the race to finish 11th. He fared much better in the last two races with an 8th and finally a 6th after some gearing changes and a new rear tyre gave him a little more speed.
Gobert is currently sixth in the championship standings but should move up to 5th place when the final round of the Australian SuperBike Championship is held at Sydney's Oran Park on August 26th.
Race 1
| 1 Shawn Giles (NSW)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 2 Jamie Stauffer (NSW)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 3 Craig Coxhell (VIC) |
Yamaha R1 |
| 4 Tony Rees (NZ) |
Yamaha R1 |
| 5 Alex Gobert (NSW)
|
Honda CBR |
| 6 Alistair Maxwell
(NSW) |
Suzuki GSXR |
| 7 Jay Normoyle (VIC)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 8 Chris Ognenis (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 9 David Simpson (VIC)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 10 Stephen Tozer (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
Race 2
| 1 Shawn Giles (NSW)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 2 Tony Rees (NZ) |
Yamaha R1 |
| 3 Craig Coxhell (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 4 Alex Gobert (NSW)
|
Honda CBR |
| 5 Jamie Stauffer (NSW)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 6 Jay Normoyle (VIC)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 7 Chris Ognenis (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 8 Steve Fisher (NSW)
|
Honda CBR |
| 9 Stephen Tozer (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 10 Alistair Maxwell
(NSW) |
Suzuki GSXR |
Race 3
| 1 Shawn Giles (NSW)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 2 Jamie Stauffer (NSW)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 3 Craig Coxhell (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 4 Tony Rees (NZ) |
Yamaha R1 |
| 5 Alex Gobert (NSW)
|
Honda CBR |
| 6 Steve Fisher (NSW)
|
Honda CBR |
| 7 Alistair Maxwell
(NSW) |
Suzuki GSXR |
| 8 Jay Normoyle (VIC)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
| 9 Stephen Tozer (VIC)
|
Yamaha R1 |
| 10 David Simpson (VIC)
|
Suzuki GSXR |
Shell Advance Australian SuperBike Championship Standings after round 4
| 1. Giles (Suzuki) |
281 |
| 2. Coxhell (Yamaha)
|
183 |
| 3. Rees (Yamaha) |
146 |
| 4. Stauffer (Yamaha)
|
129 |
| 5. Cudlin (Yamaha)
|
127 |
| 6. Gobert (Honda) |
98 |
| 7. Normoyle (Suzuki)
|
93 |
| 8. Simpson (Suzuki)
|
85 |
| 9. Fisher (Honda) |
77 |
| 10. Maxwell (Kawasaki)
|
48 |
|