Wakefield Park tests Maxima BMW’s character

The second round of the Australian Superbike Championship has proven to be a somewhat challenging round for Maxima BMW’s Glenn Allerton and Ted Collins at Wakefield Park.

After starting from tenth on the grid, Allerton made up one position on the start which saw him in ninth for the first three laps of the race, before moving up to eighth place on lap four. However, on lap six the 38-year-old ran wide at turn two which saw him taking to the grass which dropped him back to eighteenth place. The New South Welshman managed to fight his way back to finish in fifteenth place.

Allerton explained after race one that he didn’t quite have front-end feeling with his #14 Maxima BMW S 1000RR, which hampered him a bit in the twenty lap race.

With the team making setup changes in between race one and two, it saw Allerton’s bike setup a lot better for the second race.

Race two was slightly better for the former three times Australian Superbike Champion. However, off the start Allerton and a few other riders came together heading up towards turn four.

Allerton explained; “I had one rider on my right and one on my left and we made contact. As a result I think it did something to the quickshifter. This meant I was having problems changing gears throughout the whole race.”

It was a real shame in terms of what happened, as Allerton was unable to really race properly. To Allerton’s credit, and the teams, they all made a lot of stride forward to fix the issues which they had in race one and it showed as Allerton came home in eleventh place.

“It’s been a pretty hard day at the office to be honest. I’m frustrated because I know I can do better than what I have done today,” said Allerton after race two.

“It definitely wasn’t our weekend. It started off with Ted having a big crash on Friday. Everyone worked super hard to get him back on the track, which is a huge credit to the Next Gen Motorsports team. As everyone knows motorcycle racing can sometimes be a really cruel sport.”

“However, the team and I will keep our chins up and work towards the next round at The Bend Motorsports Park in April,” concluded Allerton.

With Allerton scoring a 15-11 result, it saw him leaving the 2.2km rural circuit in twelfth place with 16-points in the bag.

However, Allerton does unfortunately drop from eighth in the championship to tenth with 56—points on the board.

Wakefield Park tests Maxima BMW’s character Collins was unable to make any improvements from his starting position in both races. The 2017 Australian Supersport Champion finished sixteenth in both race one and two.

While it may not have been the results which Collins was looking for, he did have his own problems over the weekend with injuries and a few other things after the crash he had on Friday afternoon. The crash obviously didn’t help the Victorian rider, however every time he went out on track he still gave it his absolute 100%, even though he had a lot of things going on.

“Firstly I would just like to once again thank my Maxima BMW team. They worked so incredibly hard on Friday evening and early Saturday morning. They did everything they could to get me the best bike possible, which I’m ever so grateful for,” said Collins, who finished sixteenth for the round with ten points locked away.

Collins was a bit upset with himself that he didn’t get the team the results today that they deserved for all of their hard work.

However, it is what it is. Collins’ believes this weekend is one which he and the team need to move on from.

“Hopefully this round can be put down as our worst round of the season and move onto The Bend Motorsport Park where we can have a fresh start and go from there,” said Collins.

The Bend Motorsport Park wasn’t a track which Collins went well at in 2018. However, a lot of things have changed since then. Collins does know he will be competitive at the end of next month.

“We’ll just have to work hard as a team and I believe we will be fine. Obviously between now and then I have got a lot of things in my body which I have to sort out. I’ll get on top of that. That’s my job and the Maxima BMW team will do everything they can to fix the BMW S 1000RR’s. We’ll be fine,” finished Collins, who sits in thirteenth place in the championship with 41-points.

Maxima BMW Team Manager Wayne Hepburn expressed that he understands that everyone in the team is devastated with the weekend’s results.

“This is not why we come racing. For sure you can have bad weekends, but at the moment we need to take a good look at ourselves,” said Hepburn.

“I know everyone was giving it their all and maybe that’s part of it. The level of competition in the Australian Superbike Championship is high, which adds a lot of pressure. We will debrief and have it dialled for round three. I have to thank our supporters and team sponsors for their continued confidence in the team. I’m sure we will bounce back in the coming rounds,” concluded Hepburn.

The Australian Superbike Championship now heads 1,087km West to The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia, which is scheduled for 25-28 April.

Editorial and photographs courtesy of Next Gen Motorsports