FURNER motorcycle rider Dallas Skeer kicked off his 2020 Australian Superbike Championship campaign recently, with round one of the series at Phillip Island.
The round was run alongside the World Superbikes and Skeer managed 11th place overall after three races.
Skeer entered the round with confidence after two successful days of testing in January, but practice weather conditions and the competitiveness of the class took their toll.
“We had a successful two days of testing in January so we had confidence in the bike and felt we could be competitive,” he said.
“The weather was not looking the best coming into the weekend and it definitely was not during our Thursday session and Friday morning.”
Due to the inconsistent race surface, Skeer did not feel as comfortable on his 600cc Suzuki as he would have liked and with a wet track in Friday morning’s practice as well, he chose to sit it out – with dry conditions expected for the rest of the competition.
With only 13 laps of practice heading into Friday afternoon’s 15-minute qualifying, the pressure was on the young rider.
“I knew that it was going to be hard to do a good lap time as I struggled in the only 13 laps of practise I got,” Skeer said.
“With the plan to go out and ride for the whole session to try and get comfortable on the bike ahead of the races I was able to finish in 13th position out of 24 riders with a time of 1:39.233.
“I was not happy with this result as I knew I could go quicker.”
Race one was held on the Saturday morning without a warm up due to the tight schedule of the WSBK.
The 10-lap race saw Skeer with a decent start.
However, he was unable to catch the leading pack and became locked in a four-rider battle by lap three to get into 11th place.
On lap six Skeer put in a personal best time of 1:37.569, which was almost two seconds quicker than his qualifying pace and 0.6 seconds under his previous best.
He was on track for a 10th place finish on the final lap, but was held up and could not make the pass, settling for 11th.
However, Skeer took confidence from being only one second off the podium in lap times, with just 1.5 seconds between the top 12 riders in the tight field.
Race two was also on Saturday and kicked off at 5pm.
The time of day limited vision due to the sun position and Skeer found himself in a similar position, fighting with the same riders and crossing the line in 11th place.
The final race of the weekend was another late race, held at 4.40pm on the Sunday.
“Luckily there was some cloud cover so the low sun setting was gone,” Skeer said.
“I wanted to move up in the standing which I knew was going to be hard to do as I was riding the best I have yet and everyone was so close in times.
“Racing with the same group as the previous two races I knew where I was quicker and I was able move up to 10th.”
Skeer was pushing to make a move on ninth place, but a few small mistakes cost him and he lost a position.
In his attempt to recover, he dropped to 12th, before retaking 11th place.
However, by that point fatigue kicked in and he fell back to 12th and finished there.
Despite the results, Skeer was pleased with the outcome of the round, as he continues to push himself to new heights in the Superbike Championship.
“Even though our track position was not where we wanted it my lap times improved by nearly two seconds from last time I raced at Phillip Island,” he said.
“As a track I never enjoyed to ride I now do not mind it, but still need to drop that 0.5 (seconds) to be in podium contention.
“It was the closest I had been to the leaders’ lap times ever since I have been in the Supersport class and it just shows how competitive the class is.”
Skeer thanked all the support from his team both on the weekend and in the lead-up to the series and looks forward to the next round at Wakefield Park at the end of the month.
