March the 2 nd - 4 th saw the running of the Australian leg of the 2007 World Superbike Championship at the ultra fast and flowing Phillip Island Grand Prix circuit. SD Racing was in attendance with Darren Sciberras competing in the Australian Superstock support category. After qualifying 4 th , bike problems forced Daz to withdraw from the event and he didn't turn a wheel in any of the three races. With the sdracing.com.au R6 cleared from the pit and Daz having a sob out the back, the attention turned to the man sharing our pit, Russell 'Bin It' Baker and didn't he put on a show!

As the name implies, 'Bin It' Baker has tasted the tarmac at the world famous circuit on a number of occasions in the past, so as the clouds rolled in on Sunday morning the repair tools were prepared and ready for action! With only minutes to go before the 3 rd and final race for the weekend, the clouds finally opened up and soaked the circuit. The shower was about as short lived as a fresh coat of paint of Russell's bike and within seconds the sun was shining through. What to do? Stay on the dry tyres that already bolted into the bike, or switch to race wets? Most of the field was going out on dry tyres and there really wasn't much time to make a change. However based on Russell's performances in the first two races, on his dry setup he wasn't going to set the world on fire even with a tanker full of petrol so we decided to take the gamble and stick him on wets.

There were spanners flying all over the place with Daz and Russ frantically trying to get the change done in time. It was quickly obvious the Daz was not very 'Super' with the tools but somehow we got there and Russ made the grid in the absolute nick of time! Being the thorough, professional operation that we are, somehow we forgot to change Russell's suspension to wet settings or even check the tyre pressures, which turned out to be a whopping 44psi post race. Yeap it won't be long now before some MotoGP teams come pay us a visit to learn from our well honed procedures. Russ was out on the grid but was he going to stay upright for the entire 6 lap journey..we didn't see anyone rushing out to place a bet on it, but then again we didn't see anyone jumping head first off the pit roof either.

As the lights went out it was quickly clear that we had made the right choice, Russ hurdled straight to the front of the Superstock field and on the hammer of the Factory Supersport Honda of Brian Staring, who had wrongly gambled on dry tyres. Even though Russ was on the right tyres he still had a dry suspension setup and the conditions were very tricky indeed. As he battled to keep the bike upright he lost the lead to another bike on wets, the Sunstate Honda of Tim Durie who promptly pulled out a gap over our man Russ. Still if he could keep it upright Russell had a safe 2nd place with a big gap back to the only other Superstocker on wets, Craig Nicholson. With only two laps to run 'Bin It' Baker decided to put on a charge to try and reclaim the lead. We were quickly running out of finger nails to chew as we watched nervously knowing just how tricky the conditions were. But not only was Russell keeping the bike upright, he was now rapidly closing down the leader, Durie. With only a couple of corners to go he had closed right up within striking distance but couldn't quiet get the drive he required out of the final turn and finished a thrilling 2nd by a mere 0.2secs. What a fantastic result in such difficult conditions for a man that had been struggling to extract his finger from his butt all weekend. The strong result saw Russell finish the weekend 6 th overall but more impressively he did it with out scaring the paint work once.

As amazing as Russell's performance was, even more amazing was the persuasion techniques of the ElectroRegenesis Team. Somehow they roped our own Lisa Brothers into being the Umbrella girl for their rider Chris Seaton who had scored a wild card ride in the World Supersport event. As we know Lisa is normally a lot more comfortable in a set of leathers and a helmet herself so she was totally under prepared for here role as a 'brolly dolly'. With no high heels or more appropriate footwear at her disposal, the red flip flops were rolled out which kind of went with the Australian theme anyway. Chris put in a fantastic ride to finish a creditable 19 th on a highly under spec bike.

SD Racing will be back in action this weekend at Mt Gambier which will see Lisa back in action for the first time this year aboard her CBR400. The battle of Super Daz and Mega Ken will also resume but this time on 600cc bikes as Megacycle's Ken Onus makes his return to the 600cc class.