Anthony Bradford takes North Island Cup SuperMotard Series Win

It was a Kawasaki chainsaw massacre at the 3rd and final round of the North Island Cup series held on the Manfield extended long circuit in fielding. (Though the 1st round of the Vic Series)

Anthony Bradford on his superfast Kawasaki KX500 2 stroke took 3 race wins from as many starts. The 4 stroke boys had no answer for the lean green mean machines speed on the fast open flowing Manfield layout.(You can tell who the Webmaster is eh? hehehe)

A crew of 7 hardy SuperMotard enthusiasts came to race. Rain looked threatening all day long but never eventuated. Morning practice was held on on a wet track. Laughter was heard at riders briefing when they were told not to go to hard in practice, but their times were to count for the starting position for the whole day!

The Vic club put on a very good meeting with Tim Gibbs supplying those nifty transponders. Many a rider was seen scrutinizing their times on the time sheets posted on the MSG board!

The SuperMotards were semi combined with the Superbike light class. The Motards had their own start 30 to 40 seconds after the Superbike lights had cleared off. Amazingly some of the faster Motards were mixing it with the Superbike lite class by the end of lap one!

Race one started on a drying track with Craig Sergeant holeshotting the start, Bradford had a go coming into the left hander of the esses, with a determined Sergeant shutting him out. A few corners later Bradford pulled out of the slip stream of Sergeant and made the pass up conrod straight and proceeded to stretch away. Sergeant had started on wets and put on a fine display of sideways riding as his tires overheated on the dry racing line. Most riders were still getting their 1st taste of the extended long circuit. This part of the circuit was a SuperMotard haven with 2 corners well suited to the SuperMotard Hacking style.

Race two started with Bradford bolting off the line to lead into the first corner, he proceeded to put the hammer down, setting the best Motard time of the day at a 2:12.502. The highlight of the race was the battle between John Faithfull and John Oliver, both riders were going at it hammer and tongs race long with Oliver just getting the nod at the end.

Race 3 was a repeat of race 2 with Bradford holeshotting and building up a buffer. As traffic was encountered from the superbike lite class, Oliver started to close the gap on Bradford significantly. By Lap 4 Oliver was within striking difference, Bradford saw the threat coming and responded. Oliver was pushing the near standard CRF450 to the absolute max but unfortunately asked just a little to much of the front tire and went down at Higgens corner. This handed 2nd place to John Faithfull who had steadily improved his placing with each race.

All in all the SuperMotard boys had fun, with all agreeing the extended long circuit suited the SuperMotard bikes better than the short circuit.

I reckon if the Vic club would run SuperMotard in their own class on the short club circuit, ALA the Suzuki series, many more SuperMotard bikes would enter. Naturally we would need a chicane, so those nasty smelly two strokes can't get up a head of steam! For this to work, we need a few riders supporters to quickly set up a temp chicane (shaped in a way to encourage hacking of course) and then remove it straight after the race. If we can organize this ourselves, we will have a better chance of the Vic club granting our wish. If you are a rider or a supporter who can help, E-mail me and lets get this happening!

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