Race by race

A dream start for Phillis in Race One saw the youngster leading Mcwilliams intoturn One but he seemed to falter on the exit and the wily ex-gp racer slipped through to lead for the rest of the race. Beaton’s challenge ended after just one-and-half laps when the Vincent dropped a valve. While Mcwilliams took control of the race Jed Metcher clawed his way up to fourth, but the positions from there back to 10th were covered by less than one second. The Aussies suffered another hammer blow on Lapthree when Phillis pulled out at Lukey Heights with a punctured rear tyre. The Irving Vincent team pulled out of the event, surprising many in the paddock. “We actually came close to pulling out on Thursday,” said team principal Ken Horner. “We had built up three new engines, tuned them on the dyno, then came down here and had more trouble than we’ve ever had since we started doing this.” Apart from mysterious misfiring on all engines at high revs, braking issues arose in Thursday’s practice session. “I drove back to Melbourne to get replacement braking systems and we decided to soldier on, but after that blow-up I thought common sense should prevail and I need to strip all the engines to find out what the problem is.” Australia was now 13 points behind Team UK. Racetwo began as a repeat of the first, with Phillis in the lead before Mcwilliams rounded him up onturntwo to lead to the finish. Farther back in the field a furious battle unfolded with riders six abreast heading into Siberia. Byrne got the better of this little dust-up to hold third and there were two Irishmen in the top eight. As Hickman and Glen Richards tried to chase down Byrne, Giles was on the charge from ninth along with Steve Martin. The old dogs of racing were grinding it out on their unfaired Katanas, while the young guns played up front. The result was a five-way battle for second place and when the dust had settled Hickman and Phillis had turned it into a duel. Mcwilliams won, while Hickman finished second, ahead of Jed Metcher, Phillis, Byrne and Giles. Team UK were now 25 points ahead of thee Aussies. However, as the riders headed out for the wa arm-up lap for Racethree, huge drama un nfolded in theteam UK garage. Mcwilliams’ crew discovered a slow leak in his front tyre. It had already lost 4psi when thee team put a gauge on it. In desperation they pu umped it to 37psi and sent him out to arrive las st on the grid. After taking his place on pole, Mcwilliams pu umped the front brakes several times and loo oked down hard at the tyre. “It played on my mind all through the race,” hee said later. Phillis got his usual top start and Hickman sw wept through the vacant spot on the grid left by Beaton to grab second place, while Mcwilliams got swamped as the field poured intoturn One. Giles led out ofturntwo, followed by Hickman and Mcwilliams. As the freight train crossed the line to start Laptwo it was Giles leading Hickman, Hern, Mcwilliams, Metcher, Phillis, Byrne and Richards and things were looking good for Australia. Mcwilliams had other ideas though, slicing through into second place atturn Four, closing on Giles at Lukey Heights, then slipstreaming him down the main straight into the lead.the slingshot gave him a top speed of 273km/h against the 258km/h of Giles. By Lapthree Hickman had taken Giles and the focus moved to fifth, sixth and seventh places as Hern, Richards and Byrne ran three abreast atturn 12. Meanwhile, Mcwilliams was a man on a mission, setting a new class lap record of 1:36:388 on lap three. “The soft rear tyre we put on in the hope of getting a lap record went off on the last two laps and I was sliding around,” he said later. “And then the front brakes needed pumping to keep them working.the front tried to tuck on me a couple of times and now we’ve checked the tyre pressure it’s dropped to 33psi.” Hickman was secure in second place, but farther back things started to unravel for Team UK. They finished the race with a first and a second but John Mcguinness (9th) was their only other rider in the top 10. Team Ireland were creating headaches for both teams, with Byrne finishing sixth and Derek Sheils in seventh. Australia’s finishing order was Giles third, Phillis fourth, Metcher fifth, Martin eighth and Hern 10th. Team UK was still 26 points ahead but starting to look very nervous. Race Four was all about Phillis and Hickman, as Mcwilliams was caught up in an eight-way battle behind them. Hickman made a very brave overtake on Phillis out of Siberia but he quickly started to look ragged. His crash brought gasps of despair from Team UK supporters but Mcwilliams came to the rescue with a brave overtaking move on Metcher over the start-finish line to grab second place. The Irish were still playing havoc with the two title contenders. Phillis won, with Mcwilliams second and Martin a gutsy third. But Byrne finished fourth, ahead of Giles fifth, with team-mate Sheils sixth. David Johnson added to the Irish cause with a brilliant 11th. There was a lot of “coulda, shoulda, woulda” afterwards but perhaps the man who really won it forteam UK was Conor Cummins. He finished eighth in the last race and was fifth overall in the points standings. “My mechanic Don, busted his balls working on my bike this weekend, while I concentrated on hitting the apexes,” he said later. His honest comment summed up what proved to be a great weekend.