Coxhell Wins Australian Superbike Championship At Eastern Creek

Coxhell Wins Australian Superbike Championship At Eastern Creek

© 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

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Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

2003 Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship

Round 5 (FINAL) – Sunday Report – Eastern Creek – August 31, 2003

By Trevor Hedge (www.mcnews.com.au)

Australian Superbike racing experienced both dramatic highs, and lows, as the five-round 2003 Shell Advance Australian Championships concluded at Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway today.

The high came when 20-year-old Shepparton rider Craig Coxhell won his first Australian Superbike Championship. The Team Suzuki rider took both race wins today to earn enough points to win the crown and give the Sydney crowd a popular victory.

Coxhell had to get the better of his three-time, and reigning, Australian Superbike Champion Shawn Giles to take the win.

Giles was gracious in defeat. “I think that a youngster like Craig winning the title is good for the sport. And of course the main thing is that a Suzuki still won the title, and with myself coming home behind Craig, we gave Team Suzuki a fantastic 1-2 result for the year, which is exactly what we set out to do.”

The perfect performances from the Team Suzuki riders, along with some important contributions from Suzuki privateers Robert Bugden, David Butler and Luke Wicks, also helped Suzuki to surpass Honda in the race for the Manufacturers Cup. With that win, and their unprecedented fourth consecutive Australian Superbike Championship, the weekend could not have gone any better for Suzuki Australia.

Nikon Yamaha’s Kevin Curtain and Daniel Stauffer also put in great rides and took the Suzuki pairing to the wire in each race. But the Newcastle-based riders had to settle for hard earned third and fourth places respectively in the championship. However, Stauffer did leave Eastern Creek with the new Production Superbike lap record after setting a new benchmark of 1:32.982 around the 3.93-kilometer Eastern Creek layout.

But Curtain didn’t have to settle for third best in the Australian Supersport Championship. The long-time Yamaha stalwart did earn the #1 plate in the Supersport Championship. Curtain has now won five Australian Road Race Championships across three different classes. The Newcastle based rider won his first Supersport Championship in 1996 before winning the title again in 2000. Curtain also won the 250cc Production Championship in 1995, and the Australian Production Superbike Title in 1998.

But Queensland teenager Brendan Clarke did not make things easy for his vastly more experienced teammate–the youngster pushed hard throughout the whole year and the race for the title went down to the wire. The diminutive pairing gave the Nikon Yamaha squad a 1-2 finish in the Championship and also helped to earn Yamaha the honour of being named the leading constructor in the Supersport class.

Honda’s Joshua Brookes was also a major factor in the Supersport class this weekend, as was Kawasaki’s Russell Holland. Brookes took the win in the opening Supersport race for the weekend and was fighting hard with Holland for the win in the second race before the duo fell on the entry to the main straight. Their demise left Brendan Clarke to take both the race win and the outright round win. Glenn Allerton also put in a great performance this weekend and his excellent fifth outright and healthy swag of points certainly helped Yamaha to the constructors win.

Western Australia’s Peter Taplin had wrapped up the Australian 250cc Grand Prix Championship at the previous round. But the Honda rider did not back off this weekend as he took another clean sweep to continue his perfect winning record to a record-breaking 14 consecutive wins.

The 125cc Grand Prix Title had also been decided prior to this round with 16-year-old Mildura rider Joshua Waters winning the title in Queensland. Waters managed to take all the wins at this round but did come under heavy attack from a rider even younger than himself. Jason O’Halloran, 15, put in a great performance at his home track to come within 0.02 second of breaking the lap record to earn second overall in 125cc Grand Prix points.

Multiple Australian Champion Shane Soutar had dusted off his 500cc World Championship sidecar for this event. Under 2003 rules two-strokes are no longer allowed in Australian Sidecar events but Motorcycling Australia afforded Soutar special dispensation for this race meeting for Soutar to make a guest appearance on his two-stroke screamer. The Victorian rider showed that he has not lost the competitive spirit by winning the opening race at Eastern Creek yesterday. He didn’t have it all his own way though as he came under heavy attack from the Victorian pairing of Vince Messina and Alison Scoullar, themselves multiple time Australian Champions. Messina and Scoullar took the win in the final race for the round but the South Australian duo of Neville Lush and Martin Scott earned enough points to take out the Australian F1 Sidecar Championship. South Australia also took home the F2 Sidecar Title, David Jones and John Cutting earning the F2 crown on their Honda powered machine.

The battle for the Australian Superstock Title for ‘C’ and ‘D’ graded newcomers has been hectic. Ballarat’s Leigh McKenzie and Taree’s Alex Cudlin have been hard at it all year. McKenzie took the title, but it was Cudlin who dominated the Eastern Creek meeting.

After all the excitement from the thrilling racing action, the tight-knit Australian Superbike fraternity was left in shock after a horrific fall during the final Supersport leg for the day. A number of riders went down after a fierce collision at Eastern Creek’s turn one. The incident was treated as extremely serious and the organisers chose to abandon the remainder of the meeting as ambulances carried the injured riders away for treatment.


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