Murphy’s ten-hour drive to show Australian Superbike riders how it is done

Darragh Murphy, the brother of Dunlop Masters Supersport class frontrunner Andrew, drove 10 hours from his Sydney base to compete on an event at Australian Superbike Championship track – Morgan Park Raceway in Queensland.

He gave the local riders a lesson in just how fast the Irish scene really is.

His weekend got off to a flying start.

He qualified second in class, despite it being his first time at the venue and only another Irish rider, Chris Dunne from County Offaly, got the better of him. He also qualified P8 in the over 600cc class.

It set him up nicely for Race One.

“In race one I  got a good start and tagged onto the first pack for the first few laps and ended up P5 Formula 2 and P1 in Formula 2 Clubman,” he explained to Kerry Motorsport News.

His  fifth overall was all the more impressive when his opposition was taken into account. Many of the top Australian Superbike Racers were using the event as a high speed test session  for an upcoming ASBK round at the same venue in a few weeks.

“The top men in front of me are Australian Superbike Raceers and the top two are P1 and P2 in ASBK championship,” he added.

However  his great weekend ended in spectacular and unfortunate circumstances on Sunday morning.

“We were the second class out in the morning after the sidecars but the temperature was around 5 degrees,” he added, “I got a good start and held the front pack till lap three. I was pushing too hard to keep up with them and with the cold track I ended up loosing the frontend  on turn three and that finished my weekend racing.”

However all was not lost and he did raise a few eyebrows amongst the locals.

“I ended up setting a new lap record on lap 3 on Sunday morning for  the Formula 2 Clubman class, just to crash out, so hopefully next time I  go up I can keep in with the ASBK lads.”

“I only had 17 laps in total on the track, so not a bad weekend considering I  was quicker than all the local Queensland club racers.”