In his latest report on
Crash.net, rising 250 GP star Chaz Davies reviews round fifteen of the 2004 world championship; the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island, which saw the 17-year-old deliver his best ever qualifying and race result yet as he outrode several factory riders to finish a superb sixth – for which he would be personally congratulated by Dorna boss Carmelo Ezpelata and Aprilia boss Jan Witteveen...
"After the Malaysian GP we stayed overnight for one more night in Malaysia and then on Monday afternoon left to fly to Australia. We first flew from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and then from Singapore got a connection flight from there to Melbourne.
"It’s actually quite handy being around my Dad when he’s getting around on his crutches (he recently broke his leg in a Supermoto accident) in the airports because you get loads of special treatment.
"Like normally, we’d be a good 15-20 minutes getting through passport control, but as soon as they saw my dad on crutches we were ushered to the front of the queue and sent through straight away. And you get the guys driving along in the golf style carts and pick you up and take you to where you want. It’s pretty tempting to keep the crutches and fake a few injuries in the future because it makes life that much easier!
"We arrived in Melbourne airport late Monday night and then stayed there for one night before going down to Phillip Island. On Tuesday we hung around Melbourne until early afternoon then went South East to Phillip Island, about 2 hours away.
"After being in hot countries like Qatar and Malaysia for the last two weeks we were looking forward to getting in some cool weather but that wasn’t really the case. Normally Australia is pretty cold at this time of year (as it is their spring time) but typically Melbourne was having one of its hottest October days for 40 years and Sydney had its hottest October day recorded since the 1870s!
