After a reasonable start to the series at Eastern Creek in Sydney, Chas had a small lead in the Championship over fellow Suzuki rider Brayden Carr. Unfortunately he also suffered a broken wrist at Sydney and had only undergone surgery on the left wrist less than 2 weeks prior to Mallala Rd 2. He suffered a broken scafoid and had a screw secured in the middle of the broken bone so he would be able to ride.
After not being on a bike since Rd 1, three days prior to leaving for Mallala Chas contacted the team at Suzuki Race safe and had Mark Backway help with the lack of strength and movement in the left wrist.He went home to try and ride his father’s road bike with no success, and returned to Mark for further help in designing a brace that went underneath his race glove. At 1am Wednesday morning, Mark was happy with the brace and the team left for Mallala in the morning.
It was thought to be a challenge but the www.chashernracing.com team where on their way to South Australia to earn points in a hope that the Championship would not slip though their finger tips. The idea was to do as few laps as possible in order to not inflame the wrist.
Chas took part in the Thursday practice in order to sort out suspension and gearing as he had never ridden the Mallala circuit on the Suzuki GSXR 1000. The team was overwhelmed when he was able to record times under the current FX lap record and with this they knew he should be able to again mix it up with the front runners.
In Qualifying Chas was able to put the Mick Hone/ Hern Engineering Suzuki GSXR 1000 in position 2 on the grid, after Ben Henry made an excellent last lap dash in qualifying 2 to take pole position by less then .100 of a second.
Chas was able to use the front row qualifying to take 3 hole-shots and that helped secure the 3 wins. In the final race of the weekend fellow Suzuki rider Brayden Carr passed Chas for the lead for 2 laps before Chas re-passed into turn 7 and pull away from Carr before the Red flag came out on the last lap.
The team ended up with three race wins, three fastest laps in each race and a new lap record for Mallala of 1:10.15. Points for the series are now Chas Hern Suzuki 130.5, Brayden Carr Suzuki 110.5, Ben Henry 84, Tim Cowie Suzuki 84, and Dean Oughtred Mick Hone Suzuki 78. Congratulations to Dean, team mate to Chas, for jumping from 8th to 5th place in the Championship.
Round 3 will be at Winton, Victoria from May 30th to June 1st. Well done to South Australia for turning out in there 1000s and putting on perfect weather.
It was great to hear the cheer of the crowd as the riders took the flag. Let's hope Victoria can do the same.
Chas would like to thank Suzuki Race safe for their ongoing support over the weekend and a bigger thanks to Mark Backway for taking his own time in building the wrist brace.
We would also like to thank Phil Tainton for his support in getting us back on the track after our Suzuki suffered injury at Sydney.
The crash has unfortunately financially burdened the team and we are now seeking ways of sponsorship to regain our loss to be able to have the budget needed to continue the series at the top of the points tally.
We would also like to thank our Sponsors, Mick Hone Motorcycles, Woodcraft, Hern Engineering, Spidi, Mobil oils, XPD boots, EK Chains, BluGreen Multimedia, Knox Star Mercedes, Dynoverks and Suzuki Australia for their support and also Stuart Corser from Dunlop for all the help in getting the new Dunlop D209 Sportmax working really well.