The first round of the 2008 Yamaha Australian Womens Championship was held at Tivoli raceway in Queensland, with a high contingency of riders in attendance. Yamaha was well represented with the like of World Champion Katherine Prumm, Tahlia Neilson and Queensland Yamaha Girls MX Team Tamara Gray and Brook Thiemann. The jumpy track progressively became rougher and rougher throughout the day, making for some excellent racing action. Prumm wrapped up both moto’s showing the crowd why she is the best in the world.

Moto 1: With the grid of twenty eight riders, Neilson was 8th into the first corner and fought back to 6th. Dropping 5 seconds per lap from her times in practice, there was only a second separating 7th to 4th position. The 6th place was not the result she was looking for, and was keen to refocus for moto 2.

Moto 2: Saw Neilson gain a much better start and was battling Adelia Barton for 3rd position behind Prumm and Gillespie. After changing positions numerous times and putting in high speed passes on the long jumpy straights, Neilson came unstuck on the up ramp of one of the main table tops. The jagged square edge holes in the up ramp that had formed kicked the bike sideways and resulted in Tahlia hitting the ground hard. With a broken helmet and clutch she slowly remounted in 12th place and with two laps to go managed to mow down another four riders ahead of her to finish 8th.

“I was really disappointed with the crash in moto two, the track became really rough and four out of the top six racers ended up crashing in that moto. I’m just going to take the positives away from today. I was very lucky I didn’t end up getting too badly injured in the crash and if I held on to that third position there would have been a good chance that I would have been on the podium today. My YZ250f got me off the line fast in the second moto and if I keep it up I know I have the goods to podium this year. The field for the girls is so competitive at the moment and the racing is intense, its awesome!”

Yamaha Australian Women's Championship Results Top 10 at the end of Round one:

1. Katherine Prumm (Yamaha) 50 points
2. Ashlea Bates (Husqvarna) 40 points
3. Kristy Gillespie (KTM) 40 points
4. Adelia Barton (Honda) 33 points
5. Stacey Griffiths (Kawasaki) 30 points
6. Tahlia Neilson (Yamaha) 28 points
7. Melissa Holmes (Honda) 24 points
8. Lauren Parsons (Honda) 24 points
9. Renae Evans (Honda) 22 points
10. Steph Cutler (Honda) 21 points

Tahlia will be racing her YZ250f in the South Pacific Open at Wollongong next weekend and is looking to take home a win on her home turf.

Tahlia Major Sponsors: City Coast Motorcycles, Yamaha, HyperFlow radiators, MxRad, Shift, Oakley, Rockstar Energy Drink, Etnies and Doma Pipes.