2020 mi-bike Australian Superbike
Rounds 2-3 – Wakefield Park

We woke up to an absolutely glorious morning here in Goulburn. Beautiful blue skies shining down the delightfully quaint main street of Australia’s first inland city, lighting up some of the beautiful old buildings and setting the scene for what was expected to be a clear and sunny day.

Arriving at the circuit this morning the sun’s glare had nothing on the pumps worn by BCperformance Kawasaki’s Bryan Staring which were greener than a very green thing!  They were that bright when viewed in the sun that they must have been giving his ankles a suntan!

YMI Supersport 300 competitors were first to hit the track this morning followed by 600 Supersport.  Harry Khouri took provisional pole this morning ahead of Carter Thompson, Luke Power and Brandon Demmery. They will do battle again at 1140 in the final qualifying session before the lights go out for their opening 10-lap race of the weekend at 1345 this afternoon. 

Local favourite Tom Toparis obviously got out the right side of bed as he was immediately knocking on the door of Cru Halliday’s Supersport lap record, a 59.071s for Toparis compared to Halliday’s 59.050s qualifying record set in 2018. The Motorsports TV sponsored Supersport category will be on track again at 1255 for a 25-minute final qualifying session then they will be done for the day.

Superbike competitors hit the track for their Timed Practice session around 1030 this morning. Under a qualifying format for Superbike introduced last season, the morning 35-minute ‘Timed Practice’ session decides which nine riders automatically qualify for the Q2 session. The riders from tenth back in the Timed Practice session having to fight it out in a Q1 session, scheduled for 1410 this afternoon, with the top three in that session then being promoted into Q2, making for a final 12-rider tussle over the first four rows of the grid that is set to take place at 1450.

With the long COVID induced lay-off though this session was also counting as vital set-up time. Yesterday many rider were still tweaking the ergonomics of the machine and controls to their liking, such has been the lack of testing and competition for most this year.

It was a slightly unremarkable session this morning. Few of the top riders went faster than they did yesterday during Free Practice (Link).

Troy Herfoss topped the session with a 57.409 to gain his direct graduation to Q2.

Wayne Maxwell also goes through along with Cru Halliday, Mike Jones, Aiden Wagner, Glenn Allerton, Bryan Staring, Josh Waters and Jed Metcher. A fairly predictable top nine.

ASBK Superbike Timed Practice Results
(Top nine go straight through to Q2)

Motorsports TV Australian Supersport Championship Q1

YMI Australian Supersport 300 Championship Q1

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2020 mi-bike Australian Superbike Championship Points

2020 mi-bike Australian Superbike
Rounds 2-3 – Wakefield Park Schedule

Source: MCNews.com.au