European racers dominated the opening round of the 2015 Suzuki Series at Hampton Downs on Sunday.
F1 Superbike rider Horst Saiger of Liechtenstein, F2 600 racer Roman Stamm from Switzerland, and seven-time world champion sidecar driver Tim Reeves with ‘swinger’ Mark Wilkes from Britain were all unbeaten despite stiff competition from New Zealand’s fastest motorcycle racers.
Reeves and Wilkes showed their class in F1 Sidecars as the pair recorded a lap record while easily seeing off a field that included Australians Des Harvey and Dirk Jeal on their world title-winning Carl Cox Motorsport LCR to win both races. The Aaron Lovell/Tracey Bryan Shuzi LCR combination were second in both races.
“I think the New Zealand teams wanted to see what the sidecar teams are like on the western side of the world and I think they’d rather I pushed so they could hopefully learn some things and drag them along,” Reeves said.
“And it worked, because Aaron Lovell went two and a half seconds faster than he’s ever been, and he wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t been here, because you only ever race as fast as you have to.”
Reeves helped Hamilton’s defending Suzuki Series champion Lovell with advice setting up his sidecar to become more competitive.
“We set the lap record here last year at one minute 11 seconds, and today we were doing low 1m 09s,” Lovell said.
Red Devil Racing Kawasaki ZX-10R mounted Saiger was the fastest F1 Superbike qualifier and that helped in a race red-flagged after a fall. Rifers were awarded half points, with Sloan Frost on his Fujitsu TSS Red Baron Suzuki NZ GSXR1000 second, followed by 2014 F2 champion Toby Summers and Hamiltonian Andrew Stroud on Suzuki GSXR1000s.
Summers lead the hungry pack from the restart but not for long as Saiger grabbed the lead by turn five but Aucklander Summers retired his Barnes Jenkins Insurance GSXR1000 on the third lap.
Saiger was more decisive in race two where he lead from start to finish.
“I knew after race one I could go faster because I was just going 90 per cent, so I thought if this is enough then it’s OK, it is good,” Saiger said.
“For the second race I tried to push really hard right from the start to get a gap and go away from the boys, because I knew if I have a gap I can go faster than them because they cannot follow me.
“The plan worked but I couldn’t get a gap because Sloan was the same speed as me.”
Stroud’s results were tremendous, considering that he turned up for Saturday practice just to test his Suzuki GSXR1000 but was advised he could only test if he raced on Sunday.
Stamm went unbeaten in the two F2 600 clashes which provided the closest racing.
The four-time Swiss champion has been second twice in the world endurance championship and was second in this year’s IDM Superstock 1000 German championship. His experience on big-bore bikes was equalled on the smaller 600cc Red Devil Racing Kawasaki ZX-6R motorcycle but Aucklander Daniel Mettam, Shane Richardson (Wellington) and Damon Rees (Whakatane) took the fight to the European rider in race two.
Action in the 2015 Suzuki Series continues with round two at Manfeild on Sunday, with the final round at Whanganui on Boxing Day.
