Rough day out for Skeer

TOUGH WEEKEND: Dallas Skeer leads another rider through the esses at Winton Motor Raceway in Round 6 of the Australian Supersport Championships.

ROUND 6 of the Australian Supersport Championships did not go as planned for Furner motorcycle racer Dallas Skeer.

Mechanical issues plagued his weekend at Winton Motor Raceway in country Victoria, which resulted in a less-than-ideal return.

However, despite the issues Skeer finished the weekend with a ninth place overall, remaining in ninth place in the season standings.

Skeer struggled to find place early in the weekend, despite testing at the track just two weeks previous.

A wet surface faced the young rider in Friday testing, after heavy rain overnight.

He finally found some pace, but needed something extra for Saturday’s qualifying runs.

The first qualifying run saw a 14th place, but from there it all went down hill.

By the end of the session Skeer had managed just 15th position on the grid and things did not improve on Sunday.

During the warmup for the first race a warning light suggested something was not quite right with the fuel injection system.

The team swapped out the throttle bodies, but just before the race the warning light returned.

Unable to rev the bike any higher than 12,000rpm, Skeer was forced to simply ride around to finish and bag some points towards the championship.

“Having to short-shift the gears to avoid revving it out too much meant my lap times massively increased and I had no chance of keeping up with anyone,” he said.

“I just rode the bike home and finished the race in 11th.

“I got good points and a good position due to others having some big crashes.”

In between races the crew discovered the real issue, with a bad ICS valve in the throttle bodies.

That set the bike up right for Race 2, but with plenty of points to catch up to salvage something from the weekend.

While it was Skeer’s best ride for the weekend, he could only manage 14th place.

“Not finishing where we expected, we are happy to have a half-decent race and able to stay with the group for over half the race,” he said.

“After unfortunately another struggling weekend we came home ninth overall, which is not too bad considering where we started.

“We are ninth in the Australian Supersport Championship with one round left at Phillip Island in a month.

“Hopefully we can improve our race pace and finish the year off the best possible way.”