Callum Barker uses a laptop to check his bike at the Australian Superbike Championships at Morgan Park.
Callum Barker uses a laptop to check his bike at the Australian Superbike Championships at Morgan Park. Gerard Walsh

Barker claims Superbike win at home

GATTON rider Callum Barker was right at home at the Australian Superbike Championship round - Morgan Park Raceway is his home track.

Barker is a regular at Motorcycle Sportsmen of Queensland events at Morgan Park.

"I come here every month or two," he said between races yesterday.

The Sportsmen secured the rights to host round 2 in Warwick at the weekend.

The apprentice motor mechanic had a third in the first race at round one at Phillip Island in the Moto3 125cc class before blowing his engine up in race 2 when it overheated at the start.

He was back on the track in Warwick and won his first race on Saturday and again on Sunday morning.

"I am playing catch-up as I want to win the championship again," he said, referring to the series points.

"I reached speeds of 190kmh at the weekend and will have my first ride on a 600cc bike this weekend at Willowbank where I could reach up to 280 kilometres an hour."

He might be one of the best young riders in the nation but he has to drive a car from Gatton to Brisbane each day to work as an apprentice mechanic at Brisbane Motorcycles.

"I can't go for a bike licence until the end of August," he said.

"I have been doing 200 kilometres an hour at Phillip Island since I was 14."

Occasionally, he takes his bike to work for some lunchtime work and hopes to be working overseas for a world championship team in motorcycle racing within five years.

"Hopefully I will be there as a rider and be able to do a few Australian championship events when I am home," he said.

His biggest trip this year is likely to be to Western Australia for one of the five rounds of the series. Last year, he didn't have to head west as there were only two rounds in the 2014 series.

The crowd came even closer to the action when a small track and a dirt area in the middle of the raceway was used for the supermoto class yesterday, a combination of riding on sealed and dirt tracks.

This year's third round will be at Barbagallo Raceway in Western Australia on May 22-24.

Round 4 will be a Symmons Plains Raceway in Tasmania on September 4-5 and the final round at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit on October 2-4.

A decision is yet to be made on dates and venues for the 2016 series with clubs keen to host rounds applying to Motorcycling Australia.



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