The crazy weather in Phillip Island finally gave some well-needed unpredictability to the results in the last World Supers round of the year. The local seagulls were treated to some great racing, and so were the fans if they stopped concentrating on drinking those ridiculous small bottles of beer that the Aussies favour and looked up at the on-track action.
Race One started with the track soaked, puddles of standing water everywhere and almost everyone on rain tyres. But the rain had stopped and it was as windy as the cowboys eating beans scene from Blazing Saddles, so the track dried out after a few laps.
Johnny Rea was the first of the leaders to pit. In World Supers they don’t change bikes, they change wheels and tyres. The Kawasaki team got it right, while Toprak’s Yamaha squad looked up their big book of excuses for “losing several seconds in flag to flag pitstop even though there’s effectively a mandatory 30 seconds stationary time that should be plenty.” After briefly considering “mechanic eaten by seagull”, they selected “sticking front wheel”. Bautista was nowhere, blaming set-up issues for sucking in the drying conditions.
Pedercini Kawasaki Rider Kyle Smith stayed out on wets for the whole race and even led briefly as everyone else disappeared into the pitlane. He ended up 12th, way higher than expected. Smith is approximately the 863rd rider to pilot that Pedercini bike this year. Presumably they hired him for a couple of rounds to get Kawasaki used to dealing with barking mad Yorkshiremen, since Tom Sykes will be riding one again next year.
Rea won the race, his first victory in over 20 races. (To be fair, you can consider Bradley Smith’s career to be a long string of 20-race losing streaks so it’s nothing to be ashamed of).
Alvaro had his revenge the next day in the Superpole race, which is always 10 laps regardless of how long the track is. Again, the track was as wet as an F1 fan but drying fast. Most of the front runners went for something like wet front and intermediate rear tyres.
Bautista weighs something like 59kg, and a good 50 of that must be cojones because set his bike up for the dry and went out on slicks. An insanely brave decision on a track that still had loads of puddles and only 10 laps to dry out. After dropping to about 16th he battled all the way back to the victory. Yet again, the tiny terror proved that he doesn’t need a bike that’s 10mph faster than everyone else’s.
He did have a bit of a whinge that small riders struggle to warm the tyres up. You know what would help with that? About 15kg of ballast.
Race Two was dry and Alvaro won that too, ahead of Johnny Rea and whichever of the identical Lowes twins is in World Supers.
Scott Redding showed pace early on before dropping back. He had a special crash hat design to celebrate his upcoming marriage, with he and his fiancee’s faces on the sides and “Wedding Power” instead of the usual “Redding Power” on the back. Presumably the plan was to distract his rivals by making them throw up in their helmets at the sheer soppiness of it.
The race was red-flagged after Eugene Laverty decided to go out with a bang and finish his last ever race with a huge crash and some pelvic injuries. A sad end for someone who finished 2nd in the World Supersport championship twice, 2nd in the WSBK championship once, and and won a load of races along the way. Get well soon, “Norge”.
And that’s that for World Supers this year. Next season starts back in Australia in 3 months time. So soon that it’s cheaper for teams to pawn their equipment than ship it home, or just sell it and buy it back off Aussie eBay when they get back.