June 15th & 16th 2013
Arriving after driving through the night with minimal sleep we arrived at a freezing Wakefield Park Raceway. With this meeting the Saturday is a practice day but still has qualifying and races but all the 1000cc ABCD grade bikes are in together (including our 848 Ducati).
There is no control tyre so it gave us the opportunity to run Bridgestone slicks instead of Dunlop slicks which is our control tyre.
Mick Johnson on the Ducati 848
We qualified 3rd fastest and came 3rd in the first race, came 2nd in the second race (which I should have won but got passed on the line while doing a wheelie by my mate Damian Sutton on his ZX10 Kawasaki superbike.
We won the final race by 3 tenths of a second from Damian, I was pleased to beat the other superbikes being 3rd place a Honda CBR 1000 Superbike, 4th Yamaha R1 Superbike and 5th Aprilia RSV4 Superbike a great result for our 848 Ducati.
Sunday
We Qualified on Pole position in the Pro-Twins race which was missing some of the faster guys from our Australian FX Superbikes Pro-Twins races but still had some fast riders including arch rival Darren Jones on his ultra trick Ducati 848.
I was a bit casual leading the first race and was surprised when Darren out braked me on the last corner on the last lap and out dragged me to the line. So it was an unhappy 2nd. Race 2- I missed the start a bit and was back in 3rd place for the opening lap till I rounded up local ACT rider Jarrod Houghton on his Aprilia RSV4 and gave chase after the escaping Darren on his rapid 848 Ducati, I caught him, both of us doing personal best times on a freezing cold track, Darren blocking every passing move I tried, at the finish it was Darren in front by 5 hundredths of a second. Bugger 2nd Again.
Races 3 & 4
Got great starts while Darren got caught up with the other guys and I cleared out to win both races by 5 secs. Great finish to the weekend taking the Pro-Twins win and Ducati 848’s 1st and 2nd.
The weekend before I was invited to ride at Sydney Motorsport Park (south circuit) at the Post Classic Race Association Rd 2 on a Honda CBR 125r in the CommuterLite race. There was a grid of 20 of these bikes with a heap of young guys on them. It was the first time I had ridden the bike when I went out to Qualify and ended up 3rd fastest, which was great. After dicing it up with the leaders and leading the race a couple of times I finished a very close 2nd to last year’s CommuterLite Champion Ryan Young. It was a heap of fun and good practice for the 848.
Tipping into a left hander