Canterbury duo Dennis Charlett and John Ross have further stamped their authority on the two main classes after round two of this season’s New Zealand Superbike Championships at the weekend.

With an unbeaten run of three wins at the series opener at Christchurch a week ago, Suzuki ace Charlett knew he was in the firing line as the riders lined up for round two at Levels Raceway, near Timaru, at the weekend.

The championship favourite certainly got the wake-up call as Taupo’s Suzuki rider Scott Moir raced to a convincing win in Saturday’s superbike race, while Charlett was forced to settle for fourth place.

But Charlett responded in the best way possible the following day, taking his Underground Brown Suzuki GSX-R1000 to second and then first placings, enough to push his overall series advantage out to 20 points over Hamilton Kawasaki ZX-10R rider Nick Cole, who managed 3-3-2 results at the weekend and remains the biggest threat to Charlett.

“I was really just pacing myself in that last race,” Charlett explained. “It was drizzling quite hard but I managed to get enough drive on the back straight to get past Cole, then I made myself as wide as a bus so he couldn’t get back past me before the finish.

“I have been working hard to achieve this and my team has been awesome,” said the 45-year-old father-of-five and grandfather-of-three.

“It is great to have that kind of support and hopefully these results are pay-back for them.”

Another Canterbury rider, James Smith (Honda CBR1000), impressed with 2-1-6 results in the superbike class at the weekend and he moved up to third in the championship standings, albeit still a whopping 45 points adrift of Cole.

Manawatu’s Craig Shirriffs, who finished runner-up in the superbike championship last season, had another difficult weekend.

Shirriffs finished sixth in Saturday’s superbike race and sixth again in Sunday’s first outing, but he was forced to the sidelines because of safety concerns when his rear tyre shredded in the third and final superbike race.

He has therefore slipped from eighth to an unaccustomed 11th in the superbike standings.

Meanwhile, in the 600cc Supersport class, defending champion Ross was again the stand-out competitor, finishing the weekend 2-1-1 to stretch his championship advantage out from 28 points over fellow Christchurch Suzuki star Alistair Hoogenboezem to 38 points over the new No.2 rider, Auckland Yamaha ace Toby Summers.

Summers threw down the gauntlet when he won the weekend’s opening 600cc race on Saturday, but nobody had an answer for Ross on Sunday.

“Race one on Sunday was a really hot pace,” said the 32-year-old Ross, who eventually managed to force his Suzuki GSX-R600 past race leader Summers and stretch out to a notable winning margin of more than eight seconds.

“I wasn’t sure I could do the same thing in the next race but it looked like (race leader) Alistair Hoogenboezem’s tyres were ‘going off’. I just sat behind him and it paid off.

“It’s good to leave the South Island (and head to the two North Island rounds of the series) with such a healthy points lead. I left the South Island with a 30-point lead last year but you really do need that. A lot of these guys are a lot faster on their own tracks.

“I’m certainly not taking anything for granted, especially with Toby and Al going so fast at the moment.”

New Plymouth’s Hayden Fitzgerald again experienced the good with the bad, winning one class and suffering set-backs in another.

He took his Suzuki SV650 to again dominate the Superlites class, bolstering his lead to a solid 37 points over Oamaru’s Zane Agate (Kawasaki ZXR400). But then Fitzgerald crashed his Suzuki GSX-R1000 out of one of his three superbike class races – he finished sixth and then third in his other super bike outings but that was scant consolation and he now finds himself ninth in the championship standings.

“I got clipped by Sloan Frost (Wellington) heading into one of the corners and we both went down,” explained the 28-year-old Taranaki sign-writer.

“The bike was a bit damaged but my crew worked hard on getting things right again and I came back strong in the next race.”

In the 250cc Production class, Ashburton’s Baillie Perriton (Kawasaki Ninja) dominated, although he had Rangiora international Jake Lewis (Kawasaki Ninja) pushing him along.

Lewis is only briefly back home after winning the European Junior Cup this season and he shortly heads off-shore again and so won’t contest the rest of the domestic series, installing series leader Perriton as clear favourite to win the title this season.

Meanwhile, other class leaders at this halfway stage of the series are; Christchurch’s Matthew Hoogenboezem (125GP, Honda RS125); Kawakawa’s Royd Walker-Hoult (Pro Twins, Suzuki SV650); and Hamilton pair Aaron Lovell and Dennis Simonson (Sidecars, LCR1000).

The series now takes a month-long break and resumes at Taupo Motorsport Park on March 22-23, that third round including the New Zealand TT title races. The championship wraps up with a double-header final round at Manfeild Park, on the outskirts of Feilding, on March 29-30.

© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com