2025 VRRC Round 2 - The Bend
- Alex
- Jun 4
- 5 min read
The 2025 race season saw the addition of a few newbies to the Race Center team (more on them here) and boy oh boy did they have a baptism of fire at The BEND!
One of the unfortunate sides of racing is that sometimes not everyone comes home entirely in one piece. However it is pretty rare, in fact almost not even believable that 2 fellas that have become mates, who drove over together, pit next to each other, both originally purchased ex RC team bikes separately before meeting at the track one day then realising they had friends in common, race in the same class now, would both leave with almost identical injuries from completely separate incidents on track! Yet that is what our very special two Andrew Stansbury and Chris Rodda did!
Both Andrew and Chris left The BEND with a broken left wrist and broken left ankle each, and they didn't even collide with each other. They couldn't even do opposite sides! Both left wrist and left ankle!!!
Both crashes were significant, hard to believe but the bikes actually came off worse than the riders.
Andrew's crash came first. In Race 4 of the Supersport class, Andrew was pushing hard, striving for a PB when he simply pushed too hard into turn 8 and 9. It was a big one! Unfortunately a completely rookie mistake, caused by red mist.
Prior to the race Andrew had a coaching session with Daz who advised him not to push any harder in T8 and T9 because he was already close to the limit there. Instead Daz gave him other areas and key points to focus on. This advice was even coupled with a track map indicating the areas to push harder and the ones not too. In true racer style, when the lights went out, Andrew's brain fell out, he pushed harder in the area he was told not too and the rest is history... turns out Daz may have been correct in advising Andrew was already close to the limit in T8 and T9.
Check out the below video of the crash as it happened.
The race was red flagged while Andrew was taken to the medical centre and the crash cleared.
After a delay the race was restarted, only to see another red flag on lap 2, the teams hearts sunk as it became clear on the timing screens that it was now Andrew's buddy, Chris Rodda who had gone down and caused the 2nd red flag. Not to be outdone, Chris' stack was massive as well, unfortunately we have no footage of that one because the camera just couldn't cope with the violence Chris subjected it too. The cause of Chris stack was an over ambitious passing attempt at turn 5. A real shame, just an unfortunate rookie error. Also not to be outdone on the bike side of things, Chris demolished his bike too (the Ex Race Center / Tim Large Championship winning bike)
No matter how long you have been racing, this is always a hard part of the sport. The next part was one of the nicer sides of the sprot and human nature though. As the boys were carted off to hospital everyone rolled up their sleeves. Bricko and young Glazy followed the ambulances to the hospital to be with the battered duo while the rest of the team worked on the logistical exercise on how to get everything including cars back to Vic.
Josh ended up staying a few extra nights while Andrew underwent surgery on his wrist. Will Sharrock took Rodda back home where he subsequentially also under went surgery.
Even long standing Race Center family member Daniel DiNuzzo pitched in. We have a long standing saying at Race Center, when in doubt, rip the cables out...... it is even on our stubby holders. While Nuzzo has had a bit of time off the race scene with raising his beautiful young family, he made a promise to the team that if anyone actually ripped the cables out of their bike, he would pay for said cables. Well, Stanz did rip the cables out of his bike in the crash, and true to his word, Nuzzo paid for the cables! Not only that, he went out of his way to remind us of his commitment not the other way around oooxx!
Both Andrew and Chris are now well on the road to recovery and with grit and determination looking to be back for round 3 in October as they are both still in the hunt for the C-Grade Supersport title. It was also
It was already a decimated team before the event with both Harley Side and Tim Large sidelined, so why not throw a couple extra on the sidelines.
Oh and if that wasn't enough, Dingo and Daz had to make as unaccepted stop on the way back after a massive rock hit the trucks windscreen. Big enough they both felt a few fine glass particles hit them. It certainly made a noise!
VRRC RESULTS, note SA results excluded
William Sharrock
SUPERBIKE - #44 - Yamaha R1
QUALIFIED - P5
RACE 1 - P6
RACE 2 - P7
RACE 3 - P5
RACE 4 - P6
Colin Bone
SUPERSPORT 300 - #69 Kawasaki
QUALIFIED - P8
RACE 1 - P7
RACE 2 - P7
RACE 3 - P8
RACE 4 - P7
Alexander Brisbane
SUPERSPORT 300 - #54 - Yamaha R3
QUALIFIED - P7
RACE 1 - P9
RACE 2 - P9
RACE 3 - P7
RACE 4 - P8
Matthew Ritter
SUPERSPORT 300 - #23- Yamaha R3
QUALIFIED - P2
RACE 1 - P2
RACE 2 - P3
RACE 3 - P4
RACE 4 - P3
Hamish Gibbs
SUPERSPORT - #33 - Kawasaki ZX-6R
*results are overall and not C-Grade as they were not available at the time
QUALIFIED - P9
RACE 1 - P11
RACE 2 - P14
RACE 3 - P9
RACE 4 -No Results due to 2 x Red Flags from 2 x DHs
Andrew Stansbury
SUPERSPORT - #31A - Yamaha R6
*results are overall and not C-Grade as they were not available at the time
QUALIFIED - P11
RACE 1 - P14
RACE 2 - P12
RACE 3 - P11
RACE 4 -No Results due to 2 x Red Flags from 2 x DHs
Chris Rodda
SUPERSPORT - #14 - Yamaha R6
*results are overall and not C-Grade as they were not available at the time
QUALIFIED - P14
RACE 1 - P13
RACE 2 - P16
RACE 3 - P14
RACE 4 -No Results due to 2 x Red Flags from 2 x DHs
The following images courtesy of Alexander Brisbane
Thankyou for the Support
Massive hats off to the team. Bricko, Joey, Bill, Glen, Dingo, Pasquale, Luke, Timmo, Alex, Daz, Russ, young Will Glazy all our family, partners & friends for their amazing help and support.
As always a big thank you to our sponsors who have thrown their support behind our team
All the following Images courtesy of Alexander Brisbane
