Brookes and Maxwell win endurance title

Josh Brookes and Wayne Maxwell co-rode their Honda superbike to a thrilling victory in the Bel-Ray 6-hour Race at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit this afternoon to claim the 2010 Australian Endurance Championship.

The duo emerged victorious by 1min 16.737sec in a see-sawing battle with Team Honda Racing duo Glenn Allerton and Jamie Stauffer and the Team Suzuki pairing of Shawn Giles and Josh Waters, who finished second and third respectively.

Brookes, guest-riding for the team after finishing second in this year’s British Superbike Championship, celebrated with a wheelie over the finish line after completing 215 laps of the 4.45km circuit.

All three factory-supported teams led the race at various stages, with Team Suzuki’s chance of victory evaporating when Waters crashed while passing a lapped rider as the race entered its last hour.

Although Waters was able to rejoin the race, the team eventually finished two laps adrift of the race winner after making an additional pit stop to repair the damaged bike.

Maxwell was full of praise for his team, which bounced back into contention after a slow early pit stop.

“We had a slow first pit stop and lost around a minute with a fuel spill, but the guys responded with some quick tyre changes at the next pit stop and Josh and I just put our heads down to make up the time,” said Maxwell, runner-up in this year’s Australian Superbike Championship.

Brookes also praised the efforts of his Demolition Plus GAS Honda crew, singling out the riding of Maxwell for special mention.

“To be partnered up with Wayne, who is one of my best mates, was a real thrill and all the people involved in the Demolition Plus GAS Honda team are all old friends, who I’ve been involved with for many years so it was a great environment to be a part of,” said Brookes.

In addition to lapped riders adding to the drama, a computer malfunction on lap 178 threw the official results in to disarray for the final 37 laps, with teams left guessing as to their track position as the laps counted down.

Team Honda Racing recruit Allerton, who joined the factory-backed team for this weekend’s race after competing as a privateer in this year’s Australian Superbike Championship, wasn’t convinced with the final results.

“We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the officials go back through the results and cross-check, but I can’t see how Jamie and I could have lost over a minute on Wayne and Josh,” said Allerton. “It was a tough race between all three of us.”

Privateers Kris McLaren and Nick Waters finished fourth overall on their Honda and claimed victory in the Superstock 1000 class, eight laps behind the race winners.

In the supersport class, Triumph Australia (Christian Casella, John Chiodo and Jed Metcher) was the victor, despite running out of fuel early in the race.

That put them 10 laps down on the leading Team Suzuki of Brodie Waters and Troy Herfoss, but the tables were turned late in the piece when a mishap with the GSX-R600 enabled the Daytona 675 to pull back the deficit and claim the spoils.