Australian Superbikes head north for Darwin Triple Crown glory

The Australian Superbike Championship reaches the halfway point of an already tasty title fight this weekend, as the teams and riders arrive into Australia’s Top End for their annual trek around Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway.

Troy Herfoss held off Mike Jones at the last round at Queensland Raceway to claim his first round win in two years. Credit: Jeff Smith

Situated in the lands of the Larrakia nation, the Darwin round of ASBK marks the third successive year they have played a major support role in the Supercars Darwin Triple Crown, which is a round of the Repco Supercars Championship. Outside of this, they’ve been visiting Hidden Valley since 2017, only missing 2020 owing to COVID.

The last round at Queensland Raceway at the end of April saw a break in the stranglehold that Mildura’s Josh Waters has held on the championship since the beginning of the season, as Honda’s Troy Herfoss delivered a scintillating performance to clean sweep the entire weekend with pole position and race wins in the two races to claim his first round win since Wakefield Park in 2021.

Troy Herfoss and Mike Jones celebrate a successful third round of ASBK back in April. Credit: WUSSEL 783

Herfoss now sits second overall in the championship title fight on 142 points, just 18 shy of Waters and his McMartin Racing prepared Ducati V4R on 160. Heading into the round sitting equal third on 115 points are three-time ASBK champion Glenn Allerton and Yamaha’s Cru Halliday, who are hoping to bring down the massive gap that both Waters and Herfoss have opened up heading into the final rounds of the season.

Playing catch up in fifth place is defending and three-time ASBK champion, Mike Jones on 104 points. The Yamaha factory rider is still reeling from a non-points finish at Sydney Motorsport Park, owing to a catastrophic engine failure during the opening race of round two. Whilst he made up some ground points wise at round three, largely due to a strong performance whilst battling against Herfoss for the round win, Jones needs some luck to strike the top four riders ahead of him in order to come back into championship contention.

Round four of the championship will see three 16 lap races contested across the weekend and you can catch extended highlights from this weekend’s racing on July 2 at 1pm AEST on SBS and catch up anytime on SBS On Demand.