Troy Bayliss wins his own Troy Bayliss Classic
Monday 20 January: A capacity crowd of over 6,000 people were at the Taree Motorcycle Club for the second annual Motul Pirelli Troy Bayliss Classic, which saw event host, three-time World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss, take victory in the Troy Bayliss Cup.
The Australian battled
with Superpole winner, Sammy Halbert over the opening laps of the
21-lap race, before the American Flat-Track Champion bowed out of
contention after going down halfway through race.
Bayliss, who
recorded the fastest lap of the race with a 21.52 took the chequered flag
ahead of 2008 AMA Supermoto Champion Troy Herfoss and 2013 Troy Bayliss
Classic winner Michael Kirkness.
"I am absolutely over the
moon with the whole event,” Bayliss said. "When you have
a win it is always the icing on the cake.
The
Americana was great I stuffed that up a little but the crowd love
it. I hope that with the telecast on Speed and SBS
and the coverage that will stream on the internet at 4.00pm today will be
good for dirt track racing in Australia and also for getting more of the
American guys keen to come over here,” Bayliss added
Earlier in the night Halbert took victory in the Americana feature event.
The action-packed elimination races saw both Troy Bayliss and Darcy Ward
crash out of contention and veteran racer Paul Caslick controversially
eliminated for jumping the start.
"This was a really
cool event, it was so great to come here and meet a bunch of famous road,
speedway and motocross racers,” Halbert said.
"I was
happy to be competitive and to be able to battle with Troy for the lead in
the Troy Bayliss Cup was special. I took the lead briefly but Troy passed
me right back then I was trying to make something happen and slide out in
the tight left hand corner.
"The Americana races
were really cool on the oval track, it seemed like you could pass more on
that than on the TT course. I hope to back next year I had a really good
time here,” Halbert added.
Three-time World Speedway
Champion Jason Crump took out the Legends award scoring the most points of
the 12 Legends that included Jeff Leisk and Chris Watson in the first four
rounds of racing.
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