GOULBURN’S motorcycle racing hero Troy Herfoss walked away, more confident, from last week’s Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) test at Morgan Park Raceway in Queensland.
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The ASBK presented by Motul Pirelli, fifth and penultimate round will be raced at Morgan Park on the weekend of August 6 -7.
Herfoss is currently running third in the championship fight, thirteen points behind Yamaha Racing Team’s Glenn Allerton and a further eighteen points behind Allerton’s teammate Wayne Maxwell.
He completed around 100-laps last Wednesday week and another 55-laps on the following day.
It was Herfoss’ debut outing at the 2.96 kilometre twelve corner circuit.
On the first day of testing it was all about making sure his Crankt Protein Team Honda Racing CBR1000RR SP machine was as easy as possible to ride smoothly across the bump on the circuit.
“We just made a few different suspension setup changes,” Herfoss told the Goulburn Post.
“To be honest we didn’t change much at all.
“We felt like we had a pretty good bike at the end of the weekend at the previous round at Barbagallo, so the first day was all about getting used to the track and not changing too much,” explained Herfoss, who set the third overall quickest time with a 1 min 15.749 sec, which was set in the sixth session.
On Thursday, Herfoss managed to lower his time to a 1 min 14.419 sec in the fifth session on his third lap out of a total of nine.
This was .027 sec faster than Maxwell’s time, after the competition leader stopped the clock with a 1 min 14.446, also in the fifth session.
“Pirelli had brought a new rear tyre for us to try, which offered us a bit more grip and enabled me to go a bit faster today,” said Herfoss at the conclusion of the test.
“In the fifth session we used a set of new front and rear tyres and pushed for a lap time and we got it in the end.
I feel like I did get the most out of the new rear tyre, as on my first flying lap it offered me so much grip than what I thought it had.”
“Overall I’m really happy with the pace, as it was my first time at Morgan Park.
“We are looking like we are on par with the top guys.
“If the likes of Wayne and Glenn step it up a notch, I believe we can go with them.”
Herfoss is pretty sure, come race time that the race pace will be around the 1min14’s, so that is why the 29-year-old is feeling quite optimistic about his chances.
A total of four races remain in this year’s Australian Superbike Championship – two at Morgan Park and two at Winton Motor Raceway, which is why Herfoss knows just how important round five will be if he wants to have any chances of claiming this year’s title.
“We need to be challenging for race wins.
It’s as simple as that,” said Herfoss.
“It was really important to be fast over the two days.
“Now we can head into the round with every chance to be up the front, which is great.”
“At the moment there is no reason why we can’t be changeling for the top step and try and put ourselves in position at Winton to be closer enough in the points to not have to worry about any bad luck from any other riders.”
Ideally Herfoss would like to be able to go to Winton and just know that he can do his best and let the points sort themselves out come Sunday evening, at the grand finale on the rural circuit outside Benalla in Victoria.
Toparis on target
MEANWHILE 16-year-old young gun Tom Toparis was also in attendance at the two day test with the Cube Racing Team, as he prepares to hopefully go one better than what he did last time out, which was a second place respectfully.
Toparis finished in second place in the combined Wednesday and Thursday times with a 1 min 26.017 sec, which was set on Wednesday in his tenth session.
In fact his time was well underneath the current track record which stands at a 1 min 29.801 sec which was set last year.
“I’m very happy with my lap times,” said Toparis.
“Broc [Pearson] and I both pushed each other throughout the two days and managed to end up three seconds under the lap record which is pretty cool.”
“Overall I think we have found a good base setting which we can work off in a few weeks’ time, which was our primary target of this test.”
Combined Superbike laptimes – Morgan Park, QLD:
1. Troy Herfoss Honda 1 min 14.419 sec
2. Wayne Maxwell Yamaha 1 min 14.446 sec
3. Cru Halliday Yamaha 1 min 14.823 sec
4. Glenn Allerton Yamaha 1 min 15.040 sec
5. Jamie Stauffer Honda 1 min 15.656s ec
6. Sloan Frost Suzuki 1 min 16.868 sec
7. Ryan Hampton Suzuki 1 min 17.813 sec
8. Ryan Yanko Honda 1 min 19. 568 sec
9. Benjamin Lowe Honda 1 min 23.088 sec
