Doyle crashes, Holder wins his fifth Australian Solo Championship - January 2014

January 12, 2014 by Gillman Media

Chris Holder won his fifth Australian Solo Championship at Gillman last night after a dramatic final in which his main rival Jason Doyle crashed while leading.

Holder and Doyle went into the meeting as joint leaders in the series points with 38 points each from the first two rounds at Kurri Kurri and Undera Park.

The Championship was almost certain to go to one of them as defending champion Troy Batchelor, who was in third place in the points, was six points adrift on 32 points; and it was put beyond doubt when Batchelor withdrew from the meeting after practice because of knee ligament damage he suffered at Undera Park on Wednesday night. Batchelor is due to see a specialist on Monday but the early prognosis is six weeks on the sidelines.

Doyle top scored in the Gillman meeting with an unbeaten 15 points and was joined in the final by Rohan Tungate (13), Chris Holder (11) and Mason Campton (10, winner of the semi-final).

Doyle, from gate one, won the start in the final and led for the first. On the second lap Holder drew level down the back straight but Doyle held him out going into turn three, only to lose control in turn four. He was thrown over the handlebars and carted into the air fence by his bike. The air fence undoubtedly saved him from serious injury but he was a very sick and sorry looking man after the meeting and needed a lot of help just to get into the back of his van for the long trip home to Newcastle.

In the rerun it was Tungate who led all the way to beat Holder and Campton, but with Doyle excluded second place was enough for Holder to win the championship. Doyle picked up enough points to finish second while Josh Grajczonek beat Tungate in one of the closest run-offs you are likely to see to take overall third place.

Championship points: Chris Holder 56, Jason Doyle 54, Josh Grajczonek 44, Rohan Tungate 44.

The full heat results are on the Gillman website under the results tab. The full championship series points will be posted on the website once the official points have been issued by Motorcycling Australia.

Top photo: Placegetters in the final, from the left, Chris Holder (second), Rohan Tungate (first), Mason Campton (third). Photo by Judy Mackay.

Being a sportsman, Jason Doyle will no doubt be rueing the lost opportunity to be Australian Champion, but a look at just some of the crash sequence photos captured by Judy Mackay suggest he should be thinking of just how lucky he was to be able to get away without any (that we currently know about) serious injuries.