Copyright 2003, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

2003 Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship
Round 3
Winton Motor Raceway
June 22, 2003

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

Inclement weather forced officials to call a premature halt to proceedings at Victoria’s Winton Motor Raceway Sunday when continuous downpours made racing conditions too dangerous to continue.

However only the final race for each class was cancelled which meant that two of the three races were still run and the hard-core spectators that braved the conditions were rewarded with plenty of thrills and spills at the three-kilometre Winton circuit.

Craig Coxhell, a 20-year-old from Shepparton, (Suzuki) emerged from the downpour as the new leader in the 2003 Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship. But it was Newcastle’s Daniel Stauffer who took the round win after fighting through the difficult conditions to put his Nikon Yamaha on top of the podium.

Stauffer’s win came in his first race back since a frightening 250-kph crash at Phillip Island’s turn one last month which left him with broken ribs along with a cracked wrist and ankle. But after intensive physiotherapy he battled through his discomfort to put in a great ride.

Scott Charlton also shone in the conditions and put his Shell-sponsored Honda CBR954RR Fireblade on the third rung of the podium. This is the young Melbourne rider’s first year in Superbike competition after finishing second in the Australian Supersport Championship last year.

Charlton’s healthy contribution enabled Honda to keep its lead in the Manufacturer’s Championship. This is mainly thanks to some great efforts from a healthy field of privateers using their Fireblades to great effect this year.

Yamaha’s Kevin Curtain continued his unstoppable form to once again take a clean sweep of the Supersport races. In doing so the 36-year-old extended his lead over reigning Champion Shannon Johnson (Honda) to 39 points. Josh Brookes (Honda) came second overall in this third round of the 2003 Championship with young Queenslander Brendan Clarke (Yamaha) rounding out the podium. Clarke is back racing in Australia this year but previously rode for the Shell Advance World 500cc GP squad on a Honda V-Twin a couple of years ago.

Western Australia’s Peter Taplin has emulated Kevin Curtain’s unstoppable Supersport run to do the same in Australian 250cc Grand Prix. The Beechboro based rider once again beat all-comers to take both race wins and extended his unbeaten form to 8 races in succession. Lismore’s Mark Stanley also rode well this weekend and managed to take another pole position from Taplin, but a fall in race one put paid to his chances of a round win.

Mildura teenager Joshua Waters was too good for his opposition in the 125cc Grand Prix class and took the round win ahead of Mick Kelly to make it a Mildura 1-2. Definitely a strange occurrence, even though Winton is the closest championship track to Mildura, it is some six hours from Winton. The Victorian circuit is situated near the town of Benalla.

125cc Grand Prix has seen an incredible charge from the youngsters this year as Championship leader Waters is only 16 years old. Holding down second place overall in the points standings is Sydney’s Jason O’Halloran at only 15 years of age!

Winton also witnessed the return of the ‘slideways’ sidecars and it was the
South Australia pairing of Neville Lush and Martin Scott who took top honours today to extend their overall Championship lead to 44 points from fellow Adelaide pilots John Francis and Rowan Biram. The smaller F2 Sidecar Championship is headed by David Jones and John Cutting but Sydney’s Darrin Treloar and Justin Plaisted took the round honours at Winton.

A huge turn-one melee unfolded in the final Superstock race of the day with six riders going down and another four heading off on to the grass. Incredibly, no injuries were sustained in the incident and all but two riders were able to remount and continue the race.

Taree teenager Alex Cudlin showed great form in taking the Superstock win from Melbourne’s Leigh McKenzie at Winton after dominating both races. But McKenzie retains the overall lead in the championship with a healthy 36 point buffer over Cudlin so the Taree boy has his work cut out to overcome that gap with only two rounds and six races remaining in this years championship.

Caleb Stalder took pole and a race win to keep his healthy lead in the 250cc Production Championship but it was Victoria’s Troy Elliott who took the round win after putting on a confident display of wet-weather riding.

The series now has a six week break until action resumes at Queensland Raceway on the weekend of August 10 before heading to Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway for the Championship finale on August 31.