Parc Fermé: Black Amongst the Green and Gold — A Kiwi View from the ASBK Paddock
Speed, crashes, Kiwi kids giving it to the Aussies and a championship on a knife-edge. The Final Sector's raw reflections from South Australia
By Kent Gray
G’day from Adelaide and welcome to The Final Sector’s first Parc Fermé, the segment where we share raw reflections from the weekend of racing that was.
And what a weekend TFS chose for its first international assignment. Round 3 of the Penrite Oil Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) at The Bend had it all: free practice times typically separated by razor thin margins, chaotic wet qualifying sessions, the continued rise and rise of Australia’s plethora of young Superbike talent, Josh Waters’ brilliant riposte for the old guys and six Kiwis doing their sport and country proud. When they weren’t crashing, that was.
Just like our very own NZSBK, ASBK is a goldmine of untold stories. Here’s six Kiwi-centric TFS takeaways from the South Australia paddock to start putting that right and help fill the moto void till the Michelin Grand Prix of France at Le Mans. Merci for the return of MotoGP this weekend.
1. Fast & Curious
The Final Sector savoured the final rounds of Luca Durning’s NZSBK title fight with eventual champion Rogan Chandler at Hampton Downs and Taupo earlier this year. But the speed at The Bend and punch and counter punch of the combatants in the ASBK title reckoning? Next level.
We’d forgotten just how fast Superbikes fang it till we parked ourselves on the pit lane wall at Shell V-Power Motorsport Park on Friday. To quote Neil Ritchie, the voice of NZ motorcycling…Holy Toledo! You can squeeze the expletive of your choice in the middle of that for emphasis.
If you aren’t wowed by bikes screaming past at a click or three over 300kmph, you need your pulse read. These guys have gonads of steel ripping down the home straight and then tipping it into turn 1 at those speeds.
Indeed, The Bend is epic for straight line viewing as the bikes squirrel and twitch out of the final corner and lay down the power. We’re genuinely brand agnostic here at TFS but the sound of the Ducati V4R’s as they nudged the redline was…oh la la.
TFS’s only gripe was once they’d flashed by and negotiated turn 1, the bikes disappeared for the best part of 90 seconds unless you had sight of one of the big screens. And there were only live pictures on Sunday, as opposed to live timing data as fascinating as that was on Friday/Saturday.
The facilities were otherwise top-notch, but for that reason alone, we wouldn’t choose the 4.95km circuit if we had only one last race to attend as a spectator.
It’s a different and very challenging 18-corner proposition for the riders, of course, and the scraps involving race 2 winner Waters (the five-time champ is the elder statesman at age 39), championship leader Harrison Voight, first-time race winner Cameron Dunker (the kid is 18!) and fellow podium rookie Jonathan Nahlous made the TV watch utterly compelling.
Did we mention Cru Halliday and Glenn Allerton…and on and on the list goes. With only four of the 11 races of this compacted season remaining, just 48 points separate Voight in 1st from Nahlous in 6th in the championship. It’s going to be a barnburner till the final chequered flag at Queensland Raceway in late June.
2. Luca Durning is just getting started
You have to go back to 1991 and Aaron Slight (Kawasaki ZXR-750R) to find the one and only Kiwi to win ASBK. Luca Durning is a way off that but is lacking none of the ambition or backing required to compete at this level.
“I certainly want to become a champion both here and at home. I’m not sure how long it will take, hopefully a lot sooner than I hope and that comes down to me and my training, and if I want to fully commit to it and how much I really care for it. But I think I can do it in a shorter time…”
You obviously want it pretty badly then?
“Oh, for sure. It’d be amazing to be an ASBK champion…”
The DesmoSports Ducati rider survived a challenging weekend, including an off in qualifying and an oil pressure issue in the final race, to maintain his 13th place in the championship. The Whanganui 21-year-old qualified 15th and rattled off a pair of 14th places in races 6 and 7 which is about par for his first full season in the premier class.
Q15 and P13 are his best results across five rounds thus far, including his debut at Queensland Raceway last August and first points in the final round of 2025 at The Bend in November. Save for the technical and mechanical issues, the weekend gave hint that Durning is slowly coming to grips with his Panigale V4R after piloting his beloved BMW M 1000RR to second place in NZSBK.
The quiet moments that most impressed TFS? How calmly he handled a crash that was almost inevitable given he’d been mistakenly sent out with a dry electronics setting in the wet. And how he hung with the Kiwi kids in the paddock despite the age gap. They’re all in this together and Durning knows the importance of his role as the Kiwi standard bearer.
3. This sport is young. And our Kiwi kids are fast
If you’re a parent reading this, you don’t need TFS reminding you of the fiscal and emotional sacrifices that come standard with campaigning motorbikes – much less offshore. The payback though was in full evidence at Tailem Bend.
From 21-year-old Luca Durning down to the youngest, 15-year-olds Lucas Hyslop and Hunter Charlett, the six Kiwi kids at The Bend exuded everything we love in our New Zealand sports stars. They’re (so) young, fast, humble and unwaveringly polite. A genuine credit to the country in a sport that deserves greater recognition on both sides of the Tasman sea.
Lucas Hyslop (#31 below) won a sensational Yamaha bLU cRU OJC race. Tyler King extended his championship lead in a Supersport 300 class where Nixon Frost and the always smiling (and crashing this weekend!) Alvin Wu kept the Aussies on their toes.
Charlett endured a tough weekend which included a night in hospital, but watch the Papanui High School student’s riposte when the Yamaha bLU cRU R3 Asia-Pacific Championship rolls on to the Pertamina Mandalika Street Circuit in Lombok, Indonesia in July.
A final, special doff of our cap to the parents who made TFS feel so welcome at The Bend. The future of the NZSBK is bright with your kids earning their international spurs in Oz, presuming they don’t all go on to bigger and brighter things. Fingers crossed they do.
TFS looks forward to plotting their upward trajectory, whatever the championship.
4. Tyler King is going places. Fast
We bet you know a teenager or two who has their head in their phone whenever you seem to look. We’re guessing you don’t know too many who put it down, immediately swing a leg over a Kawasaki Ninja 400 and show the kind of pace Tyler King did across the weekend, as spied by TFS on more than one occasion. The kid is the epitome of chilled.
The Silverdale 19-year-old did well to dust himself off after a race one, lap one crash in the wet on Saturday for 7th and backed it up with two mature 2nd placings on Sunday after ding-dong battles with Riley Nauta.
King’s championship lead is out to 27 points with Morgan Park Raceway (May 29-31) and Queensland Raceway (June 26-28) to come. He’ll need to keep tabs on his Queensland rival and watch for South Australian #95 Tara Morrison who marked her return from injury with great early race pace and three solid results. But whatever happens from here, it cannot be overstated…a Kiwi kid leads the ASBK development class. Someone’s gotta shout it from the rooftops and TFS is here for it.
We can’t wait to see how King fares in Thailand this weekend racing round 2 of the Idemitsu Asia Road Racing Championship. As ever in the competitive world of moto, he’s racing to keep his TVS Racing International Championship seat for the remainder of the season despite sitting 5th in the title race after a DNF and 4th at the opening round at Malaysia’s fabled Sepang circuit in April.
Given his form at The Bend, we’re quietly confident King will get the job done at the Chang International Circuit in Buriram this weekend. And be right back on that phone. Kids nowadays! 😉
5. ASBK is glitzy and getting better
Aside from one grumpy photographer who wasn’t too pleased to be asked for directions to the Race Secretary’s office on Friday, TFS left The Bend thoroughly smitten with the atmosphere of the ASBK Championship. And believe us when we say this wasn’t our first rodeo in terms of world class sports assignments/events.
The two developmental Yamaha bLU cRU series – Oceania Junior Cup and R3 Asia-Pacific Championship – add much colour. The Parc Fermé photo call/champagne celebrations and the sit down press conferences that follow (more for the spectators given the unbelievable absence of print/digital media) added to the glitz. It’s amazing too what a few flash transporters do to make this feel bigger than its being treated by the mainstream media.
Don’t expect too many big trucks in the NZSBK paddock any time soon but promoter Mike Marsden is no doubt receiving intel on all the good fluff around the edges stuff happening in Australia to help make next summer’s Kiwi championship even more compelling.
The exciting news is the move to an expanded summer calendar for 2026-27 once the current ASBK championship reaches its climax at Queensland Raceway in late June. Better still is the news that the opening round has been incorporated into the MotoGP weekend in October before a return to Phillip Island in late February tied into the opening round of next season’s WorldSBK Championship.
It’s hoped the new calendar slot and associated weather will lure international riders Down Under and Aussie expatriates home to ASBK.
Sign. Us. Up.
The 2026-2027 ASBK Championship
2026
R1: Phillip Island, VIC (October 23-25)
R2: The Bend, SA (November 13-15)
R3: One Raceway, NSW (December 4-6)
2027
R4: Queensland Raceway, QLD (January 15-17)
R5: Phillip Island, VIC (TBA but late February)
R6: Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW (March 19-20)
6. Another Kiwi kid is headed to ASBK
How good to see Christchurch teenager Ryder Chamberlain get a ride in the final round of the bLU cRU Yamaha Oceania Junior Cup (OJC) at Queensland Raceway in June.
The exciting opportunity comes courtesy of a new Superbike Pathways Foundation — established by NZSBK promoter Mike Marsden with support from former Kiwi international Stu Avant.
Runner-up to Hunter Charlett in the NZSBK Supersport 150 class last summer, Chamberlain will travel to Queensland with his father Stu and be hosted by Aussie-based Avant and his wife Bec.
“I’m excited and really appreciate the opportunity the Foundation and the Avants have given me,” the 14-year-old said.
“I spent time with Stu during the national series where he mentored and advised me. I think he sees a little of his early self in me; growing up in Christchurch, in love with bikes and trying hard to make a go of racing.”
Chamberlain will link with Lucas Hyslop who is currently running 5th in the OJC. Charlett and current Moto3 campaigner Cormac Buchanan are previous Kiwi graduates of the class which was established in 2019 as the stepping stone to the big time for the continent’s best young talent.