Cru Halliday tops third session with 1m29.787 under lights at SMP

Sydney Motorsport Park Official ASBK Test

Superbike Session Three

The sun had just disappeared over the horizon and the lights had just been turned on at Sydney Motorsports Park when the Superbikes took to the track for their third and penultimate session of the day at 2005 on Wednesday evening.  The track temperature had fell to 31-degrees from the 35-degrees it had been in the second session.

Riders had reported that the track was pretty clean by the end of the second session and many of them have experience under lights here when racing in recent St. George Summer Nights Series rounds, but there are also quite a few riders taking to the track under lights for the very first time in their careers.

Arthur Sissis had largely missed the first half of the day’s testing due to bike problems thus was hoping that those gremlins were behind him for this one.

Josh Waters banged in a 1m30.860 in his first flying lap of the 25-minute session, immediately backed that up with a 1m30.682 on his next, then improved further to a 1m30.271 before rolling off and returning to the pits.

At the halfway mark of the 25-minute session Waters was still on top by more than eight-tenths.  Young Max Stauffer was sitting in P2 on 1m31.038, and had also done a 1m31.071 before the halfway point of the session. Cru Halliday was a fraction further behind in third, Senna Agius fourth and Mike Jones fifth.

Broc Pearson then moved up to fourth on 1m31.206, pushing Agius back to fifth with just over ten-minutes remaining in the session.

Both Yamaha Racing Team riders then headed out on fresh rear Pirellis and Josh Waters joined the circuit again after making some changes to the McMartin Racing Ducati.  Riders were starting to report that side grip was now starting to go away a little as the conditions changed.

That didn’t stop Cru Halliday banging in a 1m29.787!  Fractions away from the 1m29.727 set here by Wayne Maxwell during a St. George round a couple of years ago, but under the ASBK Qualifying lap record set by Robbie Bugden many years ago.

Lachlan Epis then improved to 1m30.407 to go P3.  This his last session of the day on Pirelli rubber before he switches to Dunlop in the fourth session to start getting accustomed to the Dunlop rubber he will race on this year in the Asian Road Racing Championships.

Troy Herfoss went up to P4 ahead of Agius late in the session.

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Josh Waters then joined Halliday in the 1m29s, a 1m29.970 to the Ducati man on his penultimate lap of the session but he failed to knock Halliday out of P1 on his final attempt.

One more session to go…

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