Cube Racing’s Spriggs clinches Phillip Island Supersport crown

A winning weekend in the Australian Supersport category during Phillip Island’s Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix has sealed Callum Spriggs the 2016 Phillip Island Championship.
After qualifying second and finishing third in the wet opening eight-lap encounter from pit-lane on his back-up bike, Spriggs took control in the dry on Sunday morning to comfortably win race two, the overall and series for Cube Racing.

“I got a good start and then it was kind of hard to go fast because none of us have had a dry session yet this weekend,” Spriggs reflected. “I was feeling pretty good and I just tried to go fast straight away. I was hitting all my lines and managed to pull a few seconds on the first three or four laps.

“I didn’t have a pit-board or a lap-timer to see how I was going, but I looked across on the straight and saw that I had a gap and just kept going. I am just really happy to get my first win at Phillip Island and finally get the top step of the podium. The bike worked great and the tyres weren’t spinning too much, so it finished off as a good day.”

Second of the Cube Racing contenders, Robbie Menzies, took home points with 15th in race one, before climbing the order for a promising sixth-position in race two to complete his rookie season in Supersport. That resulted in eighth overall and 10th in the standings.

“It was a dry race today, which was great,” Menzies said. “My start wasn’t too bad, but didn’t get the run through turn one that I wanted and dropped back a little bit. I had a great battle with Mark Chiodo and my teammate Tom the whole race, but I definitely didn’t feel up to speed with the minimum dry track time we had. Anyway, it was a great experience to race at the MotoGP! A massive thanks to Cube Racing and Troy Bayliss.”

Supersport first-timer Tom Toparis showed he will be a threat in the future as he rode to a strong fifth-place result on Sunday in the dry. He didn’t contest the opening race as he didn’t have a back-up bike with wet settings available.

“Race two was really good for my first proper 600 race,” Toparis commented. “The track was still very cold this morning, but it turned out to be a good day. I had a great battle with Robbie and Chiodo, ending up fifth, which I’m really happy with! It’s a shame I only got in one race, but it’s all good. A huge thanks to mum and dad, also Ben Henry for making the weekend possible.”

The Phillip Island Championship is made up of the Superbike World Championship and MotoGP World Championship support category races at the world-class 4.445-kilometre grand prix circuit.