The 2009 running of the Insure My Ride Australian Supersport Championship is shaping up to be yet another all-Yamaha affair, with Yamaha Racing Team rider Bryan Staring leading the way after three rounds.

Staring has a 19 point lead heading into Eastern Creek

Staring has a 19 point lead in the championship chase heading into this weekend’s fourth round of the series at Eastern Creek Raceway in New South Wales, which also marks the halfway point in the season.

MotoOnline.com.au caught up with the 22-year-old to see how his preparation has been going heading into the round.

Firstly Bryan, it’s been a long break since Queensland’s double-header, so what have you been up to since then?

Not a great deal, just life as usual for me. I live with Ben Henry, who races in Superbike, so yeah, just training up here in Queensland and enjoying life to be honest.

I actually went down to Sydney for a week and did some Motocross riding with my friend Wayne Maxwell, and Glenn Allerton came out for a ride too. We also went mountain biking with the Alex Gobert [laughs], and we also did a lot of cycling and stuff with Troy Herfoss in Goulburn.

I’ve just been keeping myself busy, there’s always something going on. You know, it’s not a holiday, but I don’t know what else you’d call it. It’s been good, but I’m ready to race again.

How do you manage to keep your eye in after so long off the bike in between events?

I think it pretty much comes down to the training. The whole purpose and point of training is to get yourself into that same zone where you wear yourself down and have to concentrate on what you’re doing.

Motocross is probably the best, and we get to do that up here once or twice a week. It’s always hard though, because nothing ever prepares you for the speed you have when you get back on the bike.

The YRT battle between Staring and Stauffer will resume on Sunday

You just have to take it all into account and if I get on the bike and it feels like it’s got 300 horsepower then you know, it’s all in my head. You just have to get on and try get up to speed as quick as possible.

You have a 19 point lead over fellow YRT rider Jamie Stauffer in the Supersport points, but are you confident you can maintain that lead, or even increase it, for the remainder of the season?

Yeah, I like to think that we can increase it, but in saying that, Jamie has won the Supersport championship twice before and there are reasons for that – he’s obviously particularly good.

While Eastern Creek is a circuit that I’ve been fast at before, I definitely haven’t had as much success around there as Jamie has had in the past. But I’m more than confident that we’re going to be in the race and that I can get the job done.

As for the rest of the year, I will try not to think about the points to be honest. There are too many races left to run to start being conservative, so yeah, we’re just going to keep the hammer down.

Queensland’s round saw you win three out of four races, which must have been a pretty satisfying round for you?

It was definitely a good round for us. I think we missed out on seven points in total with Jamie’s one race win and two pole positions, so that was good and I’ve never really had success at Queensland. It was a confidence booster for me and we had some close races, which was great, really enjoyable for me. I hope we can pick up at Eastern Creek where we left off there.

How did the test that you guys had at Eastern Creek late last month go for you?

Staring won three from four in Queensland

The test went really well. We got to try a few more different things with the bike and tried a few different directions. Even after so many years of developing the R6 we look at ways to improve it, so we basically look at little steps and something that could possibly improve it a little. We are trying to get every last little bit out of it. Our test went well, and we did a good lap time, so it was good for us.

The YZF-R6 has been the dominant bike in Australian Supersport racing, so when you get to the track do you have to change the bike much, or is it usually good straight out of the truck?

Well, we do change the bike a little bit, but to be honest we usually go back to the settings we started with. If we do make changes they are really minor. We’re always trying to develop it, but I probably spend most of the tests trying to get my eye in rather than change the motorbike. The R6 has done really well in the Australian championship, so there’s no real need to reinvent the wheel with it. We’ve got a good bike – I just need to ride it.

Alright well thanks, and good luck this weekend.

No worries, thank you.