No Margin for Errors in Suzuki Series Scorcher

NO MARGIN FOR ERRORS IN SUZUKI SERIES SCORCHER

DECEMBER 5, 2016: The 2016 edition of the Suzuki Series is up and running and, in addition to scorching track temperatures on both Saturday and Sunday, the racing itself was equally red hot.

The popular three-round series kicked into life at a sun-baked Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park near Taupo at the weekend with racing in all classes unforgiving, tense and incredibly brutal ... just what the promoters had been hoping for and certainly what the fans seemed to appreciate.

Right from the start, the premier Formula One/Superbike class delivered high-octane excitement as five riders battled in close formation for the win, the rest of the chasing pack stretched out behind them.

It was a tight cut-and-thrust action at the front for the entire 10 laps as Whakatane's Tony Rees, Taupo's Scott Moir, Manukau's Toby Summers, Wellington's defending series champion Sloan Frost and Liechtenstein visitor and former Suzuki Series winner Horst Saiger were locked in a thrilling high-speed scrap for every centimetre of tarseal.

National superbike champion Frost had topped the F1/Superbike qualifying, ending the session less than 300ths of a second ahead of Rees, but it looked as though Rees held the upper hand in race one, the Bay of Plenty man leading from the start and staying ahead of the pack for the next nine laps.

However, there is no prize for leading the most laps and it's positions at the chequered flag that matter most, with deteriorating tyres contributing to Rees' having a "bit of a scare" just a couple of corners from the finish, and Frost taking advantage to steal the win by less than a bike-length.

To reduce the risk of a repeat, Rees applied newer rubber to his bike before the second race and it paid dividends, with Rees taking the win by a comfortable 5.8 seconds from Saiger, with Frost forced to settle for third.

That finishing order also meant Rees had won the day, albeit by just one point from Frost, with Saiger and Moir jointly third overall, eight points adrift of Frost.

They head now to round two at Manfeild next weekend, before it wraps up at the traditional finale on the famous Cemetery Circuit, around the public streets of Whanganui on Boxing Day.

With the margins between success and failure so tight, Suzuki's Frost knows he has to make the most of Sunday's racing at Manfeild if he's to give himself a chance of retaining the Suzuki Series crown and also hope that he can prevent Honda's Rees making it three winning seasons in a row on the streets of Whanganui.

The 49-year-old Rees has won at Whanganui six times now since his first victory there in 1990, but Suzuki has dominated the series wins overall, their riders winning the Suzuki Series on all but two occasions since the series was created in 2008.

Joining the fray at Manfeild will be visiting Northern Irish rider Michael Dunlop, the 2016 Isle of Man champion.

Dunlop "had a bit of a play" at Taupo during practice day on Saturday but was unable to get official clearance from his insurers to race on Sunday.

There will be no such obstacles to overcome this coming weekend, or at Whanganui on Boxing Day and Dunlop said he was extremely keen to get into the thick of the action.

"I'm really looking forward to it, although obviously the heat here is a big thing. We're not used to this sort of heat in Ireland," Dunlop laughed.

"This is like a heat-wave for me. At home we're more used to rain.

"I'm under no illusion as to how quick these riders in New Zealand are. There's horses for courses and I don't do a lot of short circuit races. I don't think I'm going to come here and easily beat people.

"Hopefully I'm a fast learner. From what I can gather there's only something like six or seven corners at Whanganui, with a 49 or 50-second lap time, so hopefully it won't take me too long to sort out where I'm going.

"I've been in the country only a couple of days now and I've already driven a couple of thousand kilometres. I've been fortunate to get this opportunity to come out here, so I want to see as much of New Zealand as I can while I'm here."

by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

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