EmTek Racing News - 2004

28/11/2004 - Sheridan's Race Downunder

This past weekend Sheridan Morias faced his stiffest competition yet whilst campaiging in Australia. In the final round of the Formula Extreme Superbike class Shez still managed to hold his own against some of the most powerful machines and excellent riders in Australia. As part of his experience Shez had the opportunity to work with one of the most professional factory supported teams in Australia, being the Nikon Yamaha team - where full-on world spec bikes are prepared using the latest technology and telemetry. The use of telemetry showed an immediate improvement in all areas for Shez.

The weekend started off with Sheridan having to learn how to control a 195bhp Yamaha Factory bike on a totally unfamiliar track in conditions only best described as Hell. Eastern Creek Raceway, which is about an hour from the city Sydney, experienced exceptional heat wave conditions with the ambient temperature hovering around the 45° mark and the track temperature was around 62°.

Saturday practise saw Shez some 4 seconds off the pace and not gaining in time as expected. A few suspension changes saw his lap times come down from 1:36.7 down to 1:34.9 consistantly. Then along came qualifying and Shez went out on a qualifying tyre which is again a new experience as he had never used qualifiers before. Shez could not come to grips with them in the short period in Aus and decided to go back to the race setup and tyres.

He qualified THIRD on the grid much to everyones surprise.

Race 1

As has become usual with Shez he had a terrible start off the line and was swamped by the first turn. By the end of lap 1 he had already moved up to fourth position when he caught up to a slower Fergusson in turn 3 and ran into the corner hot. In order to avoid a collision Shez picked up and ran wide onto the dirty part and made the mistake of opening the throttle of a 195hp beast which proceeded to high-side him. The race was red flagged and he was allowed to use the spare bike. Shez had to restart at the back of the grid. He rode so hard that he landed up in THIRD place just behind Henderson and his team-mate Danny Stauffer. According to Shez he has no recollection of the race after lap 3 of the re-start.

Race 2

Unfortunately what was unknown to everyone is that Shez had a dose of concussion from his high-side but still soldiered on. Race 2 saw shez fight hard (with a blinding headache) to come in a respectable 5th out of 25 riders. Race 2 saw his times drop off dramatically.

Race 3

Shez had had a few moments to rest in between and the headache had subsided somewhat although not altogether. Concussion is a scarring of the brain so generally due care should be taken, but not our tough as nails Shez. His times improved again although not back to his Race 1 times. The final race saw Shez come in 4th place again behind Fergusson that caused his crash in Race 1.

Overall

Overall for the day Shez came in fourth with a tally of 40 points and he definitely did his sponsor, his family and his team mates very proud.

General

The Shez show is over for now in Australia but in the last 3 weeks he has shown the Australian Superbike community exactly what he is made of and he has made everybody proud that was involved in his quest. There was a lot of uneasiness regarding the fact that the Nikon Yamaha Factory team had decided to offer Shez the ride as opposed to any other local chap and the team owner is absolutely delighted with his decision with Shez. Unfortunately the Nikon Team is folding but this did not detract the owner from being extremely impressed with Shez. In fact as a result of this excercise there are a number of teams that are keen to get Shez on board for either next year (a bit impossible) or for 2006.

Please go to the following url for a more detailed press release covering the Nikon Yamaha Factory Team - just click on the url:http://www.formula-xtreme.com.au/xtremema.nsf/b43ae13a7a911813ca256a65003bf4ca/223bf6e7e88a1709ca256f5b001ec71b!OpenDocument

Emtek Racing would like to thank the following people and companies for their support and encouragement to assist Shez during this time

• Dirk Odendaal (X/Procure.com) - for his unwavering support and tireless effort to get Shez the opportunity to ride with Nikon and for providing the financial assistance to make it happen

• Ricky Morias (Emtek Racing) - for his support and dedication to his son and allowing him to pursue a career in a very competitive environment where individual skills are paramount to success

• Steve Trinder (Nikon Yamaha) - owner of the Nikon team for having the belief that an unknown teenager will do the team proud by offering Shez this enormous opportunity

• Steve Cannon (Aero Cannon) - for assisting Shez in making contact with the Nikon Yamaha Team

• Gil and Andy Parsons (iAdapt.co.za) - for providing technology support and updates for the EmTek Racing web site. iAdapt has also sponsored Shez prior to his joining First Technology Superbike Team.