Staring storms into Aussie superbike lead

Honda's Bryan Staring has rocketed from third to first in the 2010 Viking Group Australian Superbike Championship with a clean sweep in round three at Queensland Raceway.

The 23-year-old won the two 16-lap races in comfortable fashion, with defending champion Josh Waters (Suzuki) and Wayne Maxwell (Honda) completing the dais on both occasions.

"It's been such an unreal weekend, we kept progressing with what we knew and the bike just kept getting better," said Staring.

"I said yesterday that Wayne (Maxwell) had a clean sweep in the first round, Josh (Waters) in the second and felt it might have been my weekend to have a go too.

"The team deserves this victory as much as me, as it has put together an awesome bike in the CBR1000RR.

"This is my local round now so it's good to share this with my family and friends."

Staring has now dislodged Maxwell out if the championship top spot, and will take a 5pt lead into the next round, back at Queensland Raceway from August 19-22 (there will be a round at Broadford from July 1-4, but not for the premier classes).

Waters is third on 104.5pts, well in front of his team-mate Shawn Giles (82.5) and 2008 champion Glenn Allerton (Honda, 80).

Maxwell started fork pole position in round three, but was unable to take maximum advantage with his two third places.

"We've got a lot of work in front of us, today was a constant struggle," Maxwell said. "We were gifted a few places in that second race when a few of the other bikes dropped out, that was the only positive to come from today.

"Josh (Waters) and Bryan (Staring) raced hard today and are making this a really tough battle, congratulations to both.

"We'll go away and regroup. The team is strong and I have to thank them for all their efforts today."

Meanwhile, Waters was happy with his 40pt haul, even though he couldn't really find a set-up he was happy with.

"My team was awesome and worked non-stop to improve the bike every time I went out," said Waters.

"We got it better each time and there wasn't much between Bryan and I at the finish, but I just didn't get the job done.

"We changed the bike for this meeting after the previous round in Darwin, but will have to go back to what we know. Nobody was going to beat Bryan this weekend.

"I've only lost one-and-a-half points to the championship lead, so I'm looking forward to the next round."

Meanwhile, problems plagued Ducati's Jamie Stauffer at Queensland Raceway, with the two-time winner exiting both races early and plummeting from fourth to eighth in the standings.

Suzuki trio Robbie Bugden, Shawn Giles and Scott Charlton finished in positions 4-6, ahead of Daniel Stauffer, who put in his best performance of the season on the new Aprilia RSV4 Factory.

BMW rider Craig Coxhell dominated the Superstock 1000 A and B-grade title, as did Troy Herfoss in supersport.

Click on the following link for full results and standings in all classes.