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YAMAHA’S SMITH COMING UP TO SPEED IN AUSTRALIA
MARCH 28, 2007: It’s steady as she goes for Pukekohe’s Sam Smith.
The first appearance in Australia this year of New Zealand 600cc sports production champion Smith was fraught with difficulties but still nothing could wipe the smile off the face of the talented 19-year-old motorcycle racer.
Fresh from picking up Motorcycling New Zealand’s “Most Promising Newcomer (on-road)” award at the annual black-tie ceremony and with his first national championship trophy too fresh on the mantelpiece yet to have gathered any dust, the Yamaha rider embarked on his 2007 trans-Tasman assault near Melbourne at the weekend.
Smith raced to 11th and 10th placings at round two of the Australian Supersport Championships at Winton on Saturday and then backed that up with 8th and 9th placings at round three the following day, the two-day meeting counting as a double-header. Smith could not race the series opener because of a dates clash with one of his New Zealand commitments.
“We were behind the eight ball from the start,” explained Smith’s manager, mentor and mechanic Dave Cole, himself a former New Zealand road-racing champion.
“We had trouble getting Sam’s Yamaha released from Customs which cost us valuable set-up time on the track.
“Then there was only one qualifying session to count for the entire weekend. Sam qualified 12th, so that’s where we had to start in every race, despite the fact he was improving each time. Every race his lap times dropped significantly,” said Cole.
“But, thankfully, the bike was excellent straight out of the crate. The bike was just as it was when we’d packed it up to freight, immediately after the final round of the New Zealand Championships (at Pukekohe just a fortnight earlier), but we would have liked some track time at Winton to get it right for that track and to experiment with settings.”
Smith is determined to be better-prepared for round four of the Australian series, when he shows up with his Tecnam Yamaha YZFR6 to race at Mallala, just outside Adelaide, in three weeks.
“I got better as the weekend wore on at Winton,” Smith confirmed. “Not having that time to test was frustrating and it meant I wasn’t quite on the pace with the top five Australians. But they had the luxury of testing at the track three weeks before the race.
“They are supermen though. They were going incredibly fast and the pace was more than a second quicker than last year,” said Smith.
“In saying that, though, I think I will be able to match them as I get more track time in Australia.”
