The recent long weekend played host to round four of the SA Championships at Mac Park.

The Ducati 650 performed well as always in the Limited class, with Royce getting off to a flyer and winning the first of four races. He then came second in the 2nd race, only finishing 0.1 secs behind Michael Villani. The tight racing continued, but Royce managed to hold off and win the last two races, collecting the overall honours.

PIC: The Ducati was on-song all weekend (Credit: LSM Photography)

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The Triumph was also going well in the Supersport class. We’re happy with its development and while there is still a way to go, it’s handling and performance are where we want it to be.

PIC: The Triumph proved to be a handful over the weekend (Credit: AVR Photography)

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This was the first time Royce had ridden the new Triumph at Mac Park, which is a very demanding circuit, and we found he has a bit further to go before he’s fully race fit.

He managed a 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th in his four races.

Royce found it very fatiguing and, in hindsight, we probably made the wrong decision to run the Triumph on full fuel tanks over the weekend. (The tank has been modified to take 21 litres for the Isle of Man and we wanted Royce to get familiar with that full fuel load again, but this would have made it a bit more of a handful).

PIC: With how serious Brian takes cutting weight on the Trumpy, it’s lucky Royce is such a bean pole!

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The power the Triumph is making is very good, but on the tight Mac Park circuit we found it wanted to wheel stand everywhere. We even cut back the screen to give Royce more room to get himself further forward on the bike in an effort to try and keep the front wheel down.

A surprise was the introduction of a ‘Best Presented Bike Award’ for the meeting, which we won with the Triumph. This will go straight to the pool room alongside our similarly named best presented team award which we received at the Manx GP.

PIC: The legendary Douggie Dukes awarding Royce the prize for best presented bike.

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Rewarding himself with a white wine spritzer after a tough weekend, Royce had this to say from the Mac Park canteen, “Scoring some nice weather on the weekend was lucky!

“I always feel at home on the Ducati and had some good fun pumping some laps out.

“After recently racing at Phillip Island and Tailem Bend, which are tracks with plenty of rest time down the straights, I thought my body was in reasonable condition with gym work paying off. Racing at Mac Park on the Triumph was another story!

“Being such a physically demanding track, my body was getting pretty tired wrestling the 675. Time in the saddle is what’s going to get me fitter so I’m looking forward to the 3 Hour at Mac Park at the end of the month.”

PIC: Royce is looking forward to further developing the Triumph (Credit: LSM Photography)

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Our next event is possibly a 3 hour endurance race on the Ducati in about a month, and then the final round of the SA Championships in November. Plus, we’ll be undertaking continued testing sessions for the rest of the year as usual.