Wayne Maxwell takes Wanneroo round victory and ASBK Championship lead
The track temperature had increased around 4-degrees since this morning’s opening stanza. That first 20-lap bout was won by Mike Jones after the Ducati rider held Wayne Maxwell at bay to successfully claim his first victory of season 2016.
Neither Pirelli or Dunlop seemed to have any distinct advantage this morning so it would be interesting to see if this afternoon’s slightly higher track temperature changed the equation at all.
Troy Herfoss again scored the holeshot form the second row and led the field throughout lap one as Mike Jones attacked from behind, leading Honda across the stripe as they started lap two. Maxwell was in third ahead of Allerton, Falzon, Halliday, Burke and Stauffer.
Maxwell got the better of Herfoss on the climb over the hill before heading down to turn seven. Allerton got Herfoss on the next lap to push the Honda man back to fourth place where had then had to try and keep Daniel Falzon at bay.
Wayne Maxwell took the lead with 15 laps to run as his teammate Glenn Allerton also started to look for a way past Jones.
Both Falzon and Halliday got past Herfoss on the next lap to push the 28-year-old back sixth position.
The leading trio continued to reel off 55.5s lap after lap which saw them break away from Falzon in a relativley lonely fourth place, with 7-tenths of a second over Halliday at half race distance. Herfoss had been unable to stick with Halliday and Falzon and was by himself in sixth place, with a four-second advantage over seventh placed Ben Burke.
Two laps later however Herfoss was back up on to the rear tyre of Halliday and determined to take that fifth position before the chequered flag.
The leading trio started to encounter lapped traffic with five laps to run. Again it was Falzon that seemed to fare worst, encountering two slower riders entering turn four, losing him more than half-a-second and giving Halliday and Herfoss some hope that they might be able to challenge the South Australian in the final laps.
Allerton squeezed past Jones to take second place with three laps to run, Jones then lost a couple of bike lengths and the top three by the next lap was covered by more than a second.
With two laps to run Halliday lost a lot of ground, was passed by Herfoss, the Honda man moving up to fifth place.
Wayne Maxwell put in a 55.684 on the final lap to take victory by nine-tenths of a second over Allerton. Mike Jones getting the flag 1.8-seconds behind the victor.
Daniel Falzon fourth but perhaps didn’t fully realise his potential here this weekend. Lapped traffic and a little arm pump frustrating the JD Racing pilot and preventing him from scoring better results. He does not have to make too much of a leap forward to be in there mixing it with that leading trio, the sooner that happens the sooner he will learn more tricks from the wily veterans of the trade and accelerate his development even further.Â
Wayne Maxwell now leads the championship on 176-points, a slender five-point buffer over his teammate Glenn Allerton.
Troy Herfoss working hard for not so much reward this weekend, but still very much in the championship hunt with 158-points to his name while Jones’ tally stands at 137-points.
Wayne Maxwell the round winner by a single point over Jones.
