Radar’s Team Yamaha riders Robbie Baird and Jamie Stauffer swept all four Formula Xtreme races in the opening event of the 2001 Yamaha Xtreme Tri-State Series, held at Sydney’s Eastern Creek Raceway on Sunday, February 18.

According to a press release issued by Radar’s Team Yamaha, Baird won three of the four eight-lap sprint races aboard his Yamaha YZF-R1, with teammate Stauffer awarded victory in race two after on-track-winner Baird was penalized one position and relegated to second. The release did not explain why Baird was penalized.

The release quoted Baird as saying “I’ve never ridden an R1 around here before, so it is a great result to come away with three wins. The result in race two ended well for us as there was a risk of a more severe penalty. I’m very happy with the performance of the bike. The speed, handling and tires produced the ideal package. The conditions were quite hot on the bike all weekend, so I was happy with my fitness level this early in the season. All four races were tight. The others threw out the challenges, but were not as consistent on the day. The track was beginning to get slippery in the afternoon but the tires were up to the task. Craig (Coxhell) had a go a couple of times during the last race, but where I expected him to challenge at turn nine, he wasn’t there.”

The release quoted Stauffer, (who finished fourth in race one, first in race two, fourth in race three and third in race four) as saying “Considering the very limited time that I have had on the bike and being with the team, I am more than pleased with the results from this weekend. It was a bit of an anti-climax to be awarded the win in the second race, so I am looking forward to when I can beat the others fair and square. The bike ran fine, but we’ve still got a bit of work to do to get more drive at the rear. That will come with time on the bike I guess. Being able to be part of the best team racing in Australia at the moment is great and I’m sure that I’ll be able to learn a lot. “

Radar’s Team Yamaha’s Craig Coxhell (who finished second in race one, crashed in race two, finished fifth in race three and finished second in race four), was quoted in the release as saying “Today was a bit of an up-and-down sort of a day. The crash in the second race didn’t help things at all. We were held on the dummy grid for a while
and I think that that allowed the tires to cool too much. I just lost the front on the way into turn four. I got the bike going again, but with two laps to go I was well out of the points, so I brought the bike in to get checked over. As for the other races, they were great. I felt that in the last race I might have had a good chance as I had a new rear tire on and Bairdy had one from the previous race. To his credit, though, he hung on out there.”