Superbike contender has to stick neck out
Friday 15 March: New Zealand Superbike Championship at Hampton Downs this weekend.
Craig Shirriffs leading James Smith and Nick Cole at Timaru
earlier
this season. Photo credit:
fotocd.co.nz
Craig
Shirriffs
will have to go outside his comfort zone if he is to sustain his
challenge for the New Zealand Superbike Championship at Hampton
Downs this
weekend.
The
Feilding
racer is having his best season yet and has been the only Kiwi
to beat
Australian Robbie Bugden, the reigning champion, so far in this
series.
Going
into
the penultimate round of the championship Shirriffs stands
second in the
championship, 24 points behind the Australian. He likes the
Hampton Downs track
mostly but has vivid memories of it biting him in the past,
especially the
tricky first corner.
"Turn
one’s
pretty interesting,” Shirriffs says. "It’s blind and bloody fast
and it
drops away from you quite steeply.
"It’s
good,
it’s one of my favourite parts of the track, but I’m probably
not as
strong there as I need to be – that’s probably because I crashed
there three times
in one weekend.”
He
agrees
with the saying that you find your limits by exceeding them.
"Well that’s
the only way you can find them, isn’t it,” he says.
"You’ve
got
be prepared to go outside your comfort zone – some people can do
it, some
people can’t. I don’t do it as often as I used to.”
Apart
from
fellow Suzuki racer Bugden, Shirriffs expects strong competition
from
Wellington’s Sloan Frost (BMW), Hamilton’s Nick Cole (Kawasaki)
and
Christchurch riders Dennis Charlett (Suzuki) and James Smith
(Honda). Frost has
been testing intensively to get more speed out of his bike.
The
second
Superbike race on Sunday has extra significance as it carries
the New
Zealand TT (Tourist Trophy) title and the Geoff Perry Memorial
Trophy. Perry, a
Kiwi racing internationally, was killed in an air crash in
Tahiti 40 years ago.
Fans
had
been expecting to see nine-times champion Andrew Stroud back in
action this
weekend after he missed the three South Island rounds in January
because of a
broken collarbone suffered in a crash in December. But the
Hamilton star will
be there only as a spectator. "I
feel
fine but the hospital doctors won’t give me a medical
clearance,” he says. Stroud
–
now 45 -- had been hinting that he would retire at the end of
this season but
now he says he will definitely be back next year trying to claim
his 10th
title.
John
Ross
from Christchurch enjoys a solid lead in the 600cc Supersport
class on his
Suzuki but Auckland teenager Jaden Hassan is very fast at
Hampton Downs on his
Yamaha and will be trying hard to make up at least some of the
points deficit.
As
usual
this class is hotly contested with other contenders including
Jeremy Holmes
(Invercargill, Honda), Alastair Hoogenboezem (Christchurch,
Suzuki), Rhys
Holmes (Katikati, Yamaha) and Jake Lewis (Christchurch, Yamaha).
Other
championship
classes are Superlite, 650 Pro Twins, 125 GP, 250 Production and
Sidecars. These classes will have one race each on Saturday and
two on Sunday,
while Superbikes and Supersport will have qualifying on Saturday
and two longer
races on Sunday. The final race in each category carries the TT
title for that
class.