Canterbury pair stretch advantage

Canterbury duo Dennis Charlett and John Ross have further stamped their authority on the two main classes after round two of this season’s New Zealand Superbike Championships at the weekend, while the campaign of Manawatu’s Craig Shirriffs hit another snag.

With an unbeaten run of three wins at the series opener at Christchurch a week ago, Suzuki ace Charlett knew he was in the firing line as the riders lined up for round two at Levels Raceway, near Timaru, at the weekend.

The championship favourite certainly got the wake- up call as Taupo’s Suzuki rider Scott Moir raced to a convincing win in Saturday’s superbike race, while Charlett was forced to settle for fourth place.

But Charlett responded in the best way possible yesterday.

He took his Underground Brown Suzuki GSX- R1000 to second and then first placings, enough to push his overall series advantage out to 20 points over Hamilton Kawasaki rider Nick Cole, who managed 3- 3- 2 results at the weekend and remains the biggest threat to Charlett.

‘‘ I was really just pacing myself in that last race,’’ Charlett said.

‘‘ It was drizzling quite hard but I managed to get enough drive on the back straight to get past Cole, then I made myself as wide as a bus so he couldn’t get back past me before the finish.

‘‘ I have been working hard to achieve this and my team has been awesome,’’ said the 45- year- old father- of- five and grandfather- ofthree.

‘‘ It is great to have that kind of support and hopefully these results are pay- back for them.’’

Another Canterbury rider, James Smith ( Honda), impressed with 2- 1- 6 results in the superbike class at the weekend and he moved up to third in the championship standings, albeit still a whopping 45 points adrift of Cole.

Feilding’s Shirriffs, who finished runner- up in the superbike championship last season, had another difficult weekend.

Shirriffs finished sixth in Saturday’s superbike race and sixth again in Sunday’s first outing but he was forced to the sidelines because of safety concerns when his rear tyre shredded in the third and final superbike race.

He has therefore slipped from eighth to an unaccustomed 11th in the superbike standings.

The championship wraps up with a double- header final round at Manfeild Park on March 29- 30.