Austar Two Wheels Six Hour Race
Eastern Creek.

Aprilia RS 250 #4 and #44 entered by Ace Racing and Motorcycling Plus with
our main sponsor SONY PLAYSTATION met with varying success. Number one team, with Queenslanders Barry Allen and Dave Fuller, would be the real story of the event; however nothing could be taken away from the effort of the  GSXR750 entered by Dean Evans and Motul winning on a near stock machine.

Back to the real story of two riders, a demo 250cc Aprilia and long wait to be accepted for a late entry. The #4 machine had spent 3 days at The Creek refining pit techniques and trying to wear out our practice tyres  - Michelin sports compound Pilots - pushing to determine if both teams could go the whole race
without a tyre change. Dieter, Achilles and Dale felt there was no real drop in
Grip and times as the front tyre in particular was down to its wear limits.

Michelin had assured us that if  we were diligent with tyre pressure Ralph and Mathew in the pits would have a less stressful time.

Ten minutes before the end of Saturdays practice Barry and Dave were invited to race replacing a broken bike holding the 50th position on the grid. Brendan who was running the Aprilia promotion stand handed over the dressed up PLAYSTATION bike while we calmly pooled resources such as wheels, tyres, crash repair stock,  garage and tools.

Fairly tale win would  describe a #4 bike win if it could have been pulled off,  we were looking for a top 3 finish but our chances were destroyed 5 and a half hours in on turn 9 when our front wheel was taken out. Twenty five minutes fixing the damage cost us any chance of sharing some spoils with the #44 team. That's racing with the big boys.

The 250cc Production class win by Barry and Dave was a demonstration of
sustained riding by two seasoned pilots who knew what it would take to get
over the line first after six hours. I feel they never really extended themselves or the bike but still managed to start from last on the grid (no qualifying) and still come in 2 laps ahead. Basically they rode for just over the hour each, we refueled by hand, checked the tyres, topped up the oil with Motul and we patted their backs - amazing. Their nonchalant attitude blew me away! The rear Pilot sport could have lasted an other 2 hours - the front, well it made the six hours, just. Considering all the days we spent on tyre testing  I wish I'd had Brendan's assistance months earlier.

I would like to thank our sponsors and helpers and as usual the list would
be bigger than this news release.

Major Sponsors-  ECABAR, A&G PROTECTIVE SERVICES, motorcycling PLUS, Coffee Roasters, HAT, New Economy Group, Piecing Urge, Sony Playstation, AGV , Technic Leathers, ARAL Lubricants, Motul Oils, Australian Superbike School, Michelin Tyres ( they made the difference) Pinlock, Raven Racing, Aprilia (John Sample Group) and Tom Byrne P/L.

THE TEAM  Katie, Pam, two Steve's, Brett, Matt, Richard, Duncan, Edmund,
Brent, Brad, Lachlan, Tom, Kerry and Brendan - and Ralph.