Phillip Island Superbike Races

Click the map to see my route




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Tues 23rd Feb
I left home around 9.00 am to miss most of the peak hour and school traffic, but was also keen to miss the sun in my eyes as I headed east to Tailem Bend. It was an uneventful run to Keith in fine weather. The country heading south of Keith is flat, but quite picturesque, with lots of big red-gums, leading into wine country around Padthaway, which extends right through the famous Coonawarra Region. I stopped at Naracoorte, where I boiled by billy for a cup of tea, and some lunch, and continued on towards Mount Gambier. Once in Mt Gambier I stocked up on some groceries for a couple of days and camped at the Blue Lake Caravan Park. It was great to see the Blue Lake as a brilliant blue colouring, but it fades to grey later in March. It has a well appointed camp kitchen, but the tent sites are not particularly level. I spent the night chatting to some Ulysses folk with a Spyder which was pulling a big camper trailer, and who were heading for Albany for the AGM.


Wed 24th Feb
I just love road trips! I left around 8.30, passing the volcanic cone of Mount Shank a few kilometers south of Mt Gambier and heading for Port MacDonald. This is a major fishing port and one of the closest points on the Aussie coast to the continental shelf, so there’s lots of deep sea fishing based here. The coast road to Nelson was lovely and I’ve not been on it before. My lunch stop was a park at Warnambool, and then onto the Great Ocean Road heading for Peterborough to meet Gerard and Matt from Tasmania who were riding GS1200’s. They had ridden out on GOR after getting of the Ferry from Tasmania early this morning. A coffee stop at Port Campbell, where we also stocked up on some groceries, and we rode together to our camp site at Johanna Beach, which is on the coast near Lavers Hill and situated behind the sandhills. These are free and well maintained grass sites. There are two roads in to the camp. The western road, which we took, turns into a steep winding gravel road, which was a challenge on the big fully loaded Honda ST1300, but the eastern road is all paved. We had tea and watched the sunset from the top of the sandhill while sharing some good red. It as a memorable night.


Thurs 25th Feb
Gerard, Matt and I left Johanna around 7.30 am for the ride along the GOR to Queenscliffe. I’ve ridden this road several times, and it’s always been heavy traffic, but today there were very few cars. It was a real pleasure to ride this stunning road without dodging slow moving tourists. We caught the Queenscliffe to Sorento Ferry across the mouth of Port Phillip Bay. The $35 fare for the 40 minute trip which by-passes Melbourne is worth every cent. From Sorento it’s an easy 140 km to Cowes, the main town on Phillip Island. Our accommodation was a great two bedroom unit. We met up with our other companions for the weekend, Fitzy from Tassie and Gerhard from New Zealand both of whom had flown to Melbourne and caught a bus to Cowes. We bought some groceries from the local supermarket. and wandered down the main street to watch the masses of bikes as folk from all over Oz arriving for the weekend of racing at Phillip Island.


Fri 26th Feb
There was supposed tob e a bus running from Cowes to the track, but it didn’t turn up. We rang the company and they informed us that it wasn’t running on Friday. We caught a cab, which turned out to be cheaper than the very expensive bus. Friday was a day of practice and qualifying for various classes of bikes, including Aus Superstock 600, Aus Supersport, Historic, Aus Superbikes and World Superbikes. It was the first time that I’ve seen bike racing on a big track and they are so FAST. To see the bikes coming full throttle out of turn 12 and onto Gardiner Straight is breathtaking. Despite lots of trying, it was almost impossible to catch a photo of them on my “Point and Shoot” camera. They were just too fast. We snooped around the trade expo and saw the newly released Honda VFR1200, a shaft drive V4 sports tourer, and the Australian release of the all new Yamaha Super Tenere 1200. This is a 1200cc twin, shaft drive adventure bike, which is in direct competition to the highly successful BMW GS1200 range of bikes, and certainly looks the goods. It was a spectacular day, and back home, Gerard cooked up a Moroccan dish for tea.


Sat 27th Feb
We managed to get a ride to the track today with one of the Medevac chopper pilots (in his car!). There was more practice and qualifying for all classes, and our Club Superbike vantage point above Pit Straight was fantastic. The day included a walk along Pit Straight to see how the big international teams do it, and during the walk I managed to get an autographed poster from Aussie Troy Corser, who is riding for the factory BMW team. We also walked around the perimeter of the track. Phillip Island is a beautiful race track, sitting right on the edge of the island such that riders heading down the main straight look like they are riding into the ocean. We loved the Historic Racing with everyone having a go on a quite low budget. It is possible to get a competitive bike going for under $6,000, so it’s probably the cheapest road racing discipline, and you get the thrill of racing on a track, without the big bucks.


Sun 28th Feb
Today was race day, and bikes hit a top speed of 320km/h on the straight. WSBK Race 1 was the closest finish ever, with just .004 of a second between the winner Haslam on his Alstare Suzuki, and Fabrizio on the Xerox Ducati. It took a photo finish to separate the bikes, and the margin was about one third of the diameter of the front wheel. The second WSBK race went to Checa on his Althea Ducati, with Haslam second. It was good to see Suzuki do well. Later in the afternoon we lashed out with a helicopter ride around the track, and the view was utterly spectacular.

Mon 1st March
Gerard and Matt were heading up into NSW as their riding adventure continued and Gerhard and Fitzy headed for home by various means. I left around 8.00, caught the ferry back across the mouth of Port Phillip Bay, and headed to Geelong to have lunch with my Auntie. We had a good old chat, caught up on some gossip, and exchanged recent family photos. I hit the GOR again at Anglesea, and again as lucky, as the traffic was light. It’s a truly spectacular road, spoiled only by overcrowding by the many travelers who come to see it. I camped again in the sandhills at Johanna, but unfortunately the fully overcast sky meant that there was no spectacular sunset. A great day.


Tues 2nd March
It was a bit cold as I left Johanna and headed for Lavers Hill. From there I rode up over the Ottway Ranges and through rainforest to Colac. What a beautiful road this was, and I was in no hurry as I just flowed through the corners, absorbing the smells and the scenery. After Colac I made the diversion to Red Rock Lookout, which gave spectacular views of the volcanic areas around Colac which were last active around 4,500 years ago and about the same time as the Mt Gambier complex. I stopped for lunch at the little town of Lake Bolac on the shore of the totally dry Lake Bolac. It wil be nice to see this drought come to an end. I rolled into Halls Gap in the afternoon and set up camp in the caravan park in the middle of town. The evening was spent in the camp kitchen, swapping stories with other campers. Many seemed to be heading to Adelaide for the Fringe Festival and WOMAdelaide.


Wed 3rd March
Off home today. I didn’t leave until 9.00 because of the early morning danger of kangaroos. As I rode across the Grampians there were roos everywhere, and I didn’t get over 70 km/h before Horsham, but no near misses. I took the road to Frances, my old home town in the 1960’s. Mt Arapiles is a small steep range which juts up out of the landscape, and is popular with rock climbers. As I approached Mt Arapiles, there was a chair and metal frame on the side of the road, so I stopped to investigate. A clever local has placed the chair and frame so that when sitting in the chair, the sitter has a beautifully framed view of the mountain. At Frances I went to have a look at the old school, which now has less than ten students. I was invited to speak to the students as an “Old Scholar” and was given a guides tour of this small country school by the school captain. It was a beaut time and brought back many fond memories for me. From Frances it was north to Bordertown, and then an uneventful ride up the highway. I was home by 5.00.
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Tomorrow I pack away my gear, clean the bike, and start planning my next trip.
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