Troy Bayliss poised for strong return to Hidden Valley

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SUPERBIKE world champion Troy Bayliss reminded everyone of his class when he upstaged rivals during qualifying for today’s Australian championship racing at Hidden Valley.

Bayliss (pictured) is making his comeback to 1000cc racing at the ripe old age of 49 and he showed his rivals why he won three world titles against the best riders in the world during the early noughties after some superb riding.

The Queenslander’s 1 minute 05.601 second flying lap on his third circuit of Hidden Valley was enough to get him pole position in the first of two 18-lap races at the Valley.

Championship leader Troy Herfoss’s Honda recorded a 1:05.871 to be next to Bayliss on the start line when the 26 bikes line up for Race 1 at 11.05am.

West Australian Bryan Staring, on a Kawasaki, showed he will be a threat with a swift 1:06.088 for third position.

Bayliss is confident his Ducati can go faster after some tyre conservation in yesterday’s qualifying.

“We wanted to do a longevity run on the tyres and wanted to see how the tyres looked after running around the track,’’ Bayliss said.

“I believe we can go faster, we’ve got two tyres to choose from on the rear tomorrow so we’ll wait and see what the weather is like, though it will probably be the same.’’

Bayliss did 13 consecutive laps in the afternoon to give the Pirelli tyres a thorough workover.

“I felt great on the bike even though it won’t be easy out there. It looks like my toughest competition is coming from Troy Herfoss, the current Australian champion.

“They did some testing up here a few weeks ago and the Honda is on form as it always is, so I hope the Darwin people come out and have a look at the ASBK party, it’s warming up.’’

Herfoss said his 1:05.871 was probably par for the course on the Honda, which meant the bike would not go a lot faster today.

“What we’re looking at is consistency and repeating that sort of time every lap we get through,’’ he said.

Defending champion Josh Waters had a 1:06.300 as his best time, almost four hundreds of a second slower than his race record 1:05.986 on the same track 12 months ago.

Darwin’s Karl Schmidt continues to make the Motorsport NT Challenge his own, winning Race 1 on his Kawasaki ZX by more than 11 seconds from the consistent Jay Breeuwer-Wrennall and veteran Sam Whiting.

Howard Springs speedster Mick Hefferan was eighth fastest in qualifying for the Kawasaki Supersport racing which kicks off at 10am with the first of two 14-lap races.

Darwin’s Sam Lambert recorded a 1:08.198 to be 19th on the grid for the first race.