There’s been plenty of information surrounding the Australasian Superbike Championship that has broken cover this week, as series organisers officially launched the 2015 series via a live panel show on Wednesday night.

I was fortunate to be part of the panel at AVE studios in Artarmon, alongside Terry O’Neill, Trevor Hedge, Kelvin Reilly, and riders Troy Herfoss, Cru Halliday and Glenn Allerton. With around 2000 viewers so far, the evening was a great success for the ASC.

For information on the series structure for this year check out this link on CycleOnline.com.au and if you want to see the footage in full, make sure you follow this link also on our site.

Prior to the show I spoke to number of people and, while we know that Halliday, Allerton and Wayne Maxwell will be on Yamaha, plus Troy Herfoss and Jamie Stauffer will be with Honda again, there are other riders now falling into place.

We reported on Thursday that Mike Jones will be part of Australian Outdoor Living/Cube Racing Kawasaki with Ben Henry, although without any official factory support. Also on Kawasakis again will be the likes of Sean Condon, Matt Walters and BCperformance’s Ben Burke.

The future of Daniel Falzon was confirmed late yesterday afternoon, which didn’t come as a huge surprise, but he will be in the Australian Superbike Championship on board a base model 2015 model YZF-R1, with select ASC appearances and an entry in the MotoGP support races.

Outed Yamaha riders Robbie Bugden and Rick Olson are yet to officially secure anything. Bugden came close to riding with Jones at Cube Racing, but that didn’t eventuate, and we’re not sure what other options he may have at the moment. As for Olson, he said he has nothing right now and doesn’t expect to continue unless something suddenly arises.

There’s a lot of uncertainty about the future of Kevin Curtain and the Trinder Aprilia team, however when I spoke to him this week he said he definitely would consider lining up fulltime again if the opportunity is there. Whether or not the team will go ahead, he wasn’t sure.

Image: Keith Muir.

I’ve long been a Kevin Curtain supporter and have a huge amount of respect for his achievements, but at the same time it would be great to see the team work with some rising talent as well as Kev in 2015. There are plenty of young chargers in Supersport (and elsewhere) that would do great things on the RSV4 if provided the opportunity.

Of course there are still more riders to be confirmed, but the field is beginning to form and so far it’s obvious the ASC is the place to be. Honda hasn’t said where they will race officially, but Herfoss’ inclusion on the panel is a strong indication that they will be in the Swann Series once again.

Japan-bound Josh Hook will be on the grid at select races in Australia this year as part of his ongoing development with Honda, expected to ride at the Phillip Island WSBK round in the ASBK opener (and Phillip Island Championship opener, which he won last year) and potentially an ASC round or two.

By the way, Maxwell was absent from the panel show following a bicycle crash this week, which left him largely uninjured but definitely bruised and battered. He should be good to go for any upcoming tests on the R1M.

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