At that level, 5 seconds a lap is an eternity. It was also mentioned that they were 0.5 seconds per lap off the leader (this would have been Bautista on the Ducati V4 at that time - that was before the others caught up to the Ducati and before Bautista started falling off it when pressured). In a 20-ish lap race, that means finishing 10 seconds behind. That's an eternity. And relative to that ... my 20 seconds per lap off that pace at the same track (Phillip Island, Australia) is comical, I would be lapped every 5 laps. (That's why I'm staying where I am on my little bike in a local regional series.) And relative to that ... lots of track day participants at that day were 20 seconds off my pace.
My "good year" was 2000 at the RACE series at Shannonville. That was towards the end of Lightweight Superbike being a big class (~ 20 bikes on the grid) and it was after some really fast riders like Linnley Clarke and Jeff Williams (who is still in CSBK as of last year) had already passed through and gone on to bigger things, thus leaving a potential opportunity for someone perhaps not *quite* at that pace. I bought a spare bike for that year just in case, and went for it. As it turned out, in the 6-race series, there was one other rider that I could not touch, Frank Silva. If memory serves, he won 4 and fell off the other two times ("win or crash"), and I won those two. He won the championship, I was second, and having taken a win and with enough entries in the class at the time, that was enough to earn black numbers (in our region, amateurs carry red numbers on white background, expert/pro carry black numbers on white background).
In 2004 I won the Lightweight Superbike championship although entry numbers in that class were starting to dwindle. I was thirtysomething back then. Now I'm fiftysomething, and when the young kids go at it, I don't have an answer for them.
Go to the motorcycle show at the International Centre this coming weekend. SOAR, RACE, and VRRA will all be there. Probably I'll be hanging around the SOAR booth a lot on Saturday.