Round 3 of the 2006 Australian Superbike Championship, at Mallala, was always going to be a difficult one for SD Racing. The team's rider in action, Darren Sciberras, was carrying broken ribs sustained the previous weekend at Barbagallo in his front running performance. As the weekend panned out, the broken ribs were the least of the team's worries and what transpired can only be described as pushing the brown steamy stuff up hill.

Coming to terms with the tricky Mallala layout was going well until the first of two qualifying sessions for the GTY-R Australian Superstock Cup. Before Darren could post a quick lap, in the opening qualifier, he made a mistake and clipped the inside ripple strip sending the already battered rider thudding back onto the tarmac. Luckily no further damage was done but the incident left Daz feeling quite ginger and sitting 21st of 33 at the end of Friday's proceedings.

The team knew that Saturday morning's second qualifying session would be critical to the weekend's results and a fast time had to be set. This task was made difficult by the weather conditions, it was much colder than the Friday's session plus there was also a light drizzle present. As always Darren gave it his best shot and managed to be 3rd quickest for the session but the slower conditions and times meant it was only good enough to secure a 13th grid slot on combined times.

By the time Race 1 had rolled around Darren and the team were still struggling to solve a wheelspin issue. It was hampering drive off the slower turns, so the start was to be critical. The lights went out and Daz got an absolute flyer, passing at least 5 riders on the initial jump off the line. It wasn't to last though and on the shift from 1st to 2nd gear, Daz accidentally selected neutral and was swamped by the following pack instantly. The error left Darren back in 20th into turn 1 but with a spirited ride and some brilliant overtaking manoeuvres, he managed to crawl his way back up into 9th at the end of the 8 lap affair.

Race 2 saw another great start for the SD Racing rider however the weekend's cruel luck was to continue. Darren was experiencing problems with the gearshift lever which meant he was unable to down shift properly and spent most of the race in 4th and 5th gear. He was slowly gobbled up by trailing riders on the exit of the slower corners and fell back to 18th by race end, his worst finish for the year. Still suffering the wheelspin problem, the team made further changes, for Race 3, to try and solve the issue or at least use the weekend as a learning exercise. The changes didn't really help and by Darren's own admission it wasn't one of his best rides, feeling tired and sore, the best he could manage was 10th place.

There were a couple of highlights though, Darren pulled off some fantastic overtaking passes around the outside of the super fast right hand sweeper, even taking two riders in one hit during race 1. And the TW-Performance YZF R6 made the best presented final for its wonderful paint job by Euro Pro Smash repairs and custom graphics by TW-Performance, so look out for our photo in the next issue of Australian Motorcycle News.

It was a tuff weekend for the team but that's just how the cookie crumbles sometimes and you can bet we will be busting at the bitt to get back out there next time. Thanks again to all our sponsors!