Steve Martin’s ASBK Round 4 Preview: Expect change at the top at Morgan Park!

It’s felt like a long time since the action of Round 3 at The Bend Motorsports Park for Round 3 of the 2019 Motul Pirelli Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK), but with the action a mere couple of days away it’s time for the testing to stop, the riders and teams to finalise their preparations, the bikes to be loaded into the trucks, and the action to get underway! As we wait for the bikes to hit the track, ASBK legend and former Endurance World Champion Steve Martin shares his thoughts on the upcoming round.

I get excited this time of year, because the ASBK is heading to Morgan Park! It’s a track that always mixes the championship up a bit, and while current Kawasaki Superbike points leader Bryan Staring (Kawasaki BCperformance) dominated last time out at The Bend, that almost certainly won’t be the case this weekend! Morgan Park Raceway is a very different track and it’s almost guaranteed there will be a different result. That’s been the case at every round so far in 2019, where there have been completely different riders on the podium from one round to the next. It’s the perfect situation to be in as a fan coming into Round 4!

The secret to riding the Morgan Park circuit is just to ‘let it flow’! When you first ride around the circuit it can be hard to find the rhythm, but you’ve got to just take a breath, relax, let the bike flow into the corners, and when it ‘clicks’, it really clicks. It’s tight, it’s blind, it’s got plenty of undulations, and it’s one of those tracks that’s very difficult to master; if your bike is not set up perfectly, you’re going to have a very tough weekend.

The Honda is quick here. The engine is perhaps not the outright fastest, but it’s one of the easiest, most user-friendly powerplants in the whole ASBK field. User-friendly is exactly what you want for Morgan Park when you’re searching for drive out of those slow corners, so expect Troy Herfoss (Penrite Honda Racing) to be quick here as he was at Wakefield Park for Round 2. The Ducati is quick too- that bottom end grunt! Sure it handles really well, but it’s that punch out of those slower corners that means you’re struggling to overtake the Duc ‘round Morgan Park, especially with Mike Jones (Desmosport Ducati) on board. 

I really do believe that we’re going to see the Ducatis and the Hondas at the front, but then again when I look at the championship standings, I think it could be anyone. The top five riders in the championship ride for five different manufacturers, which is just incredible. Of the riders on the other bikes, Wayne Maxwell (Team Suzuki ECSTAR Australia) on the Suzuki has got to be in with a chance. He’s had a lot of bad luck so far this year so look for his luck to change soon. 

Although he hasn’t yet been on the top step of the podium in 2019, Cru Halliday (Yamaha Racing Team) has been by far the most consistent. He’s done everything right so far: chipping away, no DNFs, riding with his brain, and ultra-competitive every race. He won here as a privateer in 2017, so this could be the track where he gets that maiden race win of 2019. But his number one goal this year has been to bring the bike home in the points every time. His rivals haven’t been able to do that, which is one of the reasons why he’s just one point off the championship lead. 

There are others to watch out for, too: we know what Maxwell’s Suzuki ECSTAR teammate Josh Waters can do when everything’s going right. He normally starts to fire up this time of year, so I’m sure he’s going to be fighting for victory. And what about Aaron Morris, filling in at Maxima BMW. It’s unfortunate that regular riders Glenn Allerton and Ted Collins are still not fit to race, but that’s less of a blow when you can get a quality rider like Morris to fill in. Aaron is very talented; he’s not going to be there just to make up the numbers. I think he might be a little bit spectacular.

We’ve had a long break since the last round and there’s a lot of riders itching to get back out there. You’re not as sharp as you might be when you don’t race for a while, so for the less-experienced riders it’s probably going to take a little while to get back into it. A couple of guys have been doing some racing overseas during the ASBK’s winter break: Staring filled in for Kawasaki Team Thailand for two rounds of the Asia Road Racing Championship. He’s fresh off the bike from Round 4 at Suzuka in Japan, so he’ll have his eye in already and be hot to trot. 

Tom Toparis (Leda Nutrition, Yamaha) in the Motorsports TV Supersport class is another rider who has been competing overseas and will be ready to go for Morgan Park. He has been incredible all year, with race victories in both the ASBK and the German IDM. The only thing he’s got to watch out for this weekend is the gaggle of guys now using him as a yardstick! Nic Liminton (YRD Yamaha) is the strongest of those, and we saw that at Tailem Bend. Nic’s new bike for this year hadn’t had all the bits and pieces in the package up until that point, but at Tailem Bend they got it all together for his first win: the first to beat Toparis all year. Keep an eye on Reid Battye, too; that Suzuki is a really sweet-handling 600 and we saw what Ted Collins could do with it when he won the championship on one a couple of years ago. Battye’s been testing at Morgan Park, so he should be up to speed and another one to watch. Oli Bayliss has also done a lot of testing up there, he’s an up-and-coming improver. 

As you would always expect, the YMI Supersport 300s are going to be incredible. In some respects, it’s the showcase race of the weekend simply because of the excitement it provides. You get all those young guys and girls banging handlebars left right and centre, they don’t seem to want to give an inch. Now it’s Max Stauffer that they all want to try and beat, but as we’ve seen it can soon turn on its head race by race. Harry Khouri is going to be happy sitting in second spot. John Lytras has had some bad luck this year, but he’s still right up there in the championship standings, so if it all goes right for him at Morgan Park he could be one to watch. 

Make sure to get your ticket for Round 4 of the 2019 Motul Pirelli Australian Superbike Championship at Morgan Park, 5-7 July 2019. For more updates and to purchase, head to ASBK.com.au.

Remember, you can watch all the action on Sunday 7 July from 1PM-3PM AEST on Fox Sports and SBS. Online coverage is available all day at ASBK.com.au

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Images courtesy of Andrew Gosling – tbg sport