March 15th & 16th saw the running of Round 1 of the 2008 Australian Superbike Championship and SD Racing's Darren Sciberras ' first outing in the premier Supersport category on his SDRacing.com.au YZF-R6. Making the step up this year from Superstock, we always knew this would be a huge challenge however it would be fair to say that we had hoped to be doing a little better than we currently are.

The weekend saw Daz qualify his R6 back in a lowly 22nd position and finish both 13 lap races in 18th position, a result that probably was on par with our early testing results and realistic expectations heading into the weekend, not that being realistic was ever one of Daz's strong points!

"To be honest, all things considered I was relatively happy enough with the Race 1 result. I got a good start and made up a few positions, but the reality was that I didn't have the pace to stay with the pack in front of me and slowly fell away. I just kept pushing as hard as I could and towards the end of the race I could see that the rider in front must have been straggling and I was catching. In the last couple of laps I had a good little fun dice with Ben Bourke and Cole Odendaal and I was happy to get the upper hand in that little scrap.

Although I was lapping slower than a Volvo driver wearing a hat, we made good progress during the weekend and we improved our pace in every session except for race 2. We made a change that didn't work and I proceeded to suck even more than I did in the first race and was lucky to benefit from a number of DNFs by riders in front.

I have also been working on my race fitness and although it still needs to improve, considering that less than 12 months ago just walking was a serious challenge I think the hard work definitely paid off.

I have been very fortunate to have received some great help, a big thanks to Russell Baker for all his hard work on the bike both at and away from the track, if I could ride as well as he spannered we would be laughing. Also a big thanks to Trevor Manley and Stuart Winton for their work helping me get the bike dialed in, the bike certainly was being let down by the rider but I hope to remedy that situation in coming months. Also as per normal Lisa has been fantastic in her support"

We certainly have a lot of work ahead of us however the washup form the weekend has given some clues as to why we are struggling. The main spacer between the seat and handle bars doesn't seem to be working correctly, which is a situation that our team has had to deal with quite often in the past, so our attention will be squarely aimed at resolving that issue. One thing is for certain, it's awesome to be back racing and 2008 is a fantastic opportunity for us to improve, we will either sink or swim!

Roll on round 2 at Mallala on April 19th & 20th !

Oh we nearly forgot...those of you who have been familiar with Daz's results over the past few years may need to sit down for this one..Daz didn't crash the bike once all weekend, hard to believe but true.suppose it would be a challenge to crash going that slowly!