The remaining Pro Bracket was Top Bike with eight entries in attendance. The first session was marred by a nasty accident in the braking area when Rodney Salvestro lost control of his yellow Gulf Oils Harley after completing a 7.37/193.54 pass. Basically, Salvestro fell to the left of the bike and it careered into the wall and then bounded across both lanes to end up facing the opposite wall with the rear slick still going at full noise. More dazed than injured, Salvestro got to his feet and sprinted down track to the bike just in time to stop a fire marshall from spraying foam into the engine. He got the engine stopped safely and then was taken into the back of the ambulance for a check up.
In the first qualifying round, none apart from Troy McLean got down the track in a representative manner. Ditto really for the second qualifying session, with Brett Stevens’ 7.03 being his best for the night. The third session proved to be a defining one especially for Westralian racer Jay Upton, who had a four-foot-high nitro flame licking his leathers as he was thrust back on the white charger which recorded a top qualifying 6.209/206.45.
Half-a-second back was second qualifier McLean who ran his best numbers for the night on the second Jack Daniels Harley with a 6.715. Teammate Stevens was in third with the aforementioned pass and a third Harley rider, Dennis Grant, ran a 7.55 to round out the top half of the field.
Eliminations opened with Upton taking the solo in 6.62 seconds at an early shut-off 168 mph. Next up, McLean faced Phil Parker and it turned out to be a one-sided affair as McLean out-reacted (.094 to a .306) and out-ran the Victorian with a bracket-like 6.716 to a 12.560.
An all-Harley affair was up next when Dennis Grant faced Craig Bonwick with both riders finding it hard to keep their errant mounts in a straight line. While Bonwick was heading for the wall, Grant actually hit the top end lights and was disqualified. It didn’t matter anyway as Bonwick had holeshot the star-spangled bike with a 7.83 getting by a tardy 7.72.
The final pairing saw Stevens face the Suzuki funny bike of Tasmanian Shane Walker, which had struggled to post only 8.94 in qualifying. Despite an almost even leave it quickly became a chalk-and-cheese joust with Stevens’ 7.08 more than covering a sub-par 9.29.
The semis pitted Upton against Bonwick and despite leaving on a .242 light, Bonwick’s ride went silent about third track and left Upton to take the win with a 6.437 blast. The other semi pitted teammates Stevens and McLean against each other, but it was obvious there were no team orders as McLean strapped almost a tenth of a second holeshot on his boss (.039 to .131) With Stevens in hot pursuit something happened to the McLean juggernaut and “The Boss” rode past for a 7.044 to 7.547 win.
So, to the final, where the two protagonists fighting for this year’s title took on each other, with Upton having a 58-point lead coming into the race. On the green it was an even leave (.112 to .113), but by the 60-foot clocks Stevens’ bike was slowing (0.125 to 0.140) and this was the template for the pairing as Stevens ended up two seconds slower than his opponent with a 6.41 snuffing out an 8.41.
After the event Stevens took the time to tell the crowd of his weekend. “Prior to the event we broke a cam in the motor and then when we replaced it we just couldn’t find the power that we were after. I went to sleep in the semis and was lucky to get the win against Troy, but I think I’d need two or three engines to catch that bike (Upton’s Triumph),” he concluded.
Upton was a latecomer to the awards, but just prior to the final said, “We’ve had all sorts of problems and at 8 p.m. last night I truly thought we wouldn’t be racing today. The bike just didn’t want to work at all.” Obviously, he eventually found the right stuff as he backed up his top qualifier status with consistent mid- to low-sixes on the night and heads into the last event with an 88-point lead in the Top Bike Championship.