Roaring Success

Many of you might have noticed the distinctive deep exhaust note of the Yamaha YZF-R1 at the final round of the NZ Superbike Championship, which was eminating from the Superstock entry of Tony Rees. The legend from Whakatane who kept the Superbikes honest on what is a virtually stock road bike, dropped us a line after the event to let us know just how it went…

The Tony Rees Motorcycles race team headed north from Whakatane keen to get the Yamaha R1 out on the track to cut some laps around the new circuit.  We were hoping to get the SuperStock R1 right amongst the higher spec Superbikes, to show what you can do without spending a small fortune.

Friday afternoon was a perfect day for more setup time on this new circuit, which is proving to be pretty hard on tyres. Robert and Dennis from C.K.T. Suspension worked tirelessly to help us to get the best life that we could out of the Dunlop rear tyre. Saturday went well, but for qualifying we finally got to put some new tyres on as we had been using second hand tyres up until then because of limited supply.  It felt great to get new tyres on and some serious traction for at least 10 laps.  The fastest lap we did was good enough for sixth overall on the grid and first Open SuperStock bike.

Sunday dawned a perfect day, with track temperature up around 40 degrees.  Race 1 was 15 laps in length and due to the high track temps, it was pretty hard on the rear tyre, but a good start meant a great finish with fifth overall and first Open SuperStock bike home.  Race 2 was the NZ TT title and a full 20 lap race and with another good start it gave me a chance to have a good run with the Superbikes, only giving away a little bit of straight line speed. With five laps to go it was getting pretty slippery, and with the rear tyre crying 'enough' I had to back off to make it to the finish line for another pretty good finish of sixth overall and first Open SuperStock bike home. First overall for Open SuperStock class for the championship and another fun ride on the best sounding bike - the Yamaha YZF-R1. Finally, a big thanks must go to: Tony Rees Motorcycles, Yamaha Motor NZ, Yamalube, GYTR race parts, C.K.T. Suspension, Ohlins, Bike Rider Magazine, DID chains, and A.S.V. levers.