04/11/2025
So, the 2025 Southern Downs Road Racing Championship finished up a few weeks ago, and it has been an epic season for the PMD Racing Team.
This year i competed in the Supertwins class again on board the Yamaha R7, with Callum Barker and James Morris on the Suzuki GSX-R 1000R's in the Superbike class.
So let's start with Rd.1
The season started off with an all-new livery for the R7,
but due to an injury in round 2 of 2024, I had no time on a bike until the morning of qualifying. It's fair to say I was lacking a little bike fitness, but the lap times did get quicker, and I finished the weekend with 2nd overall.
Rd.2
I struggled a little at this round, with bike fitness still gaining strength, and at a circuit I hadn't ridden before.
I had some good battles with 3 2nd places and a win, giving me 2nd overall for the weekend.
Rd.3
Well, didn't start out the way I planned. We had an overheating issue going on with the R7 and spent more time in the pit garage than on track on the Friday of practice.
Saturday qualifying and we had to retire the bike with a suspected head gasket issue, but not was all lost, and thanks to James Morris, who brought his RS660 out to play for me.
Having to learn to ride the RS660 while racing it was a challenge, but somehow I managed to come away with 3rd overall for the weekend.
Rd.4
This time, I had made a few changes to the RS660 as I would be finishing the remainder of the season on it, and the R7 was out of action for now, and my bike fitness was feeling good.
I struggled to get the RS660 off the line and got swamped into turn 1. I had to work my ass off to chase the front guys down, and it was not easy. As the season progressed, so did everyone, and this made for some really awesome battles all through the field.
Fortunately, I got 3 wins and a 2nd, giving me 1st overall for the weekend.
Rd.5
I had a 72-point lead coming into the final round of the season, but quietly in the background, the pressure was still on, as anything could happen, and the championship was still up for grabs, considering there was an awesome battle between four riders for 2nd and 3rd in the championship, with only a handful of points between them. If I didn't get any points, then they were going to be battling for the championship.
So the plan was to win the first race and secure the championship, sounds easy, right.? All I had to do was get a good start. Well, that was an epic fail. I mean, my start wasn't that bad, but everyone else just got a much better one than me.
I dug deep to push hard and fight my way through the field, but Max was way out in front with a good lead. I finally got some clean air into P2 and just gave it a good crack to chase down Max. With 2 laps to go, I felt I was gaining ground, and on the last lap, I was about 5 bike lengths off Max. With a little luck, as Max made a few little errors, I got a good drive out of the last turn, into the slipstream, and pipped Max over the line by about 0.04 of a sec, as I was told. It was very close and secured the Championship win.
With two wins, a 4th, and a 2nd, it gave me the overall win for the weekend.
Also with Callum and Jame in the Superbike class,
Both of them had a good season with up and down moments.
But we retained the Superbike title again, with Callum Barker winning the championship and James Morris coming 4th.
All this is possible because of all our sponsors, supporters, and everyone in the Team. A special thanks to Natthan, who works his ass off as the team Mechanic, also to Bob Loveday, Bob Morris, Kirsten, and Tiwa for always being there as a big part of the team
A huge thank you goes out to all our sponsors and the team.
We are so very grateful to all of you for your ongoing support.
Also, a shout-out to everyone at The Motorcycle Sportsmen of QLD, and those behind the scenes, the flagies, volunteers, RACE and ROAD.
Looking forward to next season.
PMD Racing
Suncoast Powerhouse Dyno-Tuning
Yamaha Motor Australia
SC-Project Oceania
Kenma Australia
SBS Brakes
NG Brakes
Venhill Engineering Ltd.
YSS Suspension Australia
Aly-Tek Racing Components
Podium Motorcycle Developments
