“Ive had a great weekend, its been a lot of fun here with my family and seeing freinds. I’m pretty happy seeing that I’ve never riding the bike before,” Gobert said at days end. “The team has worked really hard to get the Honda going really well, it was the starts that made it hard for us.”

Both races were won by Ansett Air Freight Suzuki’s Shawn Giles on his GSX-R750 Superbike who dominated proceedings, leading from the start to win both legs by three seconds from Kevin Curtain (Team Radar’s Yamaha R1) who had two superb  battles with Adam “Crusty” Fergusson (Mobil Honda Racing Honda CBR929) with Curtain’s 17-year-old teammate Craig Coxhell fourth.

Qualifying fourth fastest, Gobert  was behind the eight ball from the green, battling  to keep the front end grounded as it wheelyed off the start line; Gobert the front wheelying, left behind in 12th at the end of the first lap. 
This was enough to see the Gobert of old returned as he put the head down and made a charge for the front runners in the nine lap race around the 3.9km layout. 

While the front runners may have got away, those in between were quickly overcome to get to fifth before he backed off when it became apparent that the gap was to great to bridge but was still the first privateer bike home behind the factory backed teams, 10 seconds of the winner. 

“I charged hard from the back but there was just too much to make up and so with a couple of laps to go I buttoned it off a bit to save the tyres.” The rules in the championship require one set of tires to be used for both legs.

Gobert got a worse start in the second leg but made up a few places before pulling in after five laps. “I was looking forward to getting a better start and being with the leaders, but I got off the line worse than the first one! I had to fight hard to get through overrevved it changing down. It went a bit off so I decided to pull in before I did too much damage. I think maybe we cracked a valve.”

Shop owner and team manager, Nick Meskos, was wrapped in the performance of his new rider; “Anthony’s done a great job for the little time he’s spent on the bike and he’s getting quicker every time he jumps on it. Pulling in when the engine went off has saved us a lot of trouble as changing a valve is a bit easier that rebuilding a shattered engine. Now we’re looking forward to the Island,” said a delighted Meskos.

Anthony’s brother Alex had a similar weekend retiring from the first leg while fifth, with an intermitant electrical problem but managed to finish seventh in the second leg after an engine swap and scored two sevenths places n the Supersports. Middle brother, Aaron, was the most successful of the trio winning both of the 250 proddie races in dynamic form to build on his points lead in the championship.

It was a fitting birthday present for mum, Sue, who saw her three talented boys race together for the first time in an Australian championship event.

In a reference to the wild lad's past, after the completion of the first leg, Gobert was immediately targeted for a drug test but shrugged it off with a laugh. 

At every round drug tests are carried out on four randomly selected riders, but it was interesting to be a witness to Gobert’s ‘random’ selection!
The next round is at his favourite track; Phillip Island in two weeks time.
Ends