Last weekend’s Queensland Raceway round of the Viking Group Australian Superbike Championship saw a familiar face return to the top of the InsureMyRide Australian Supersport category in the legendary Kevin Curtain.

The former World Supersport runner-up made his second appearance of the season with the Yamaha Racing Team in the ASBK series, winning both races after an entertaining duel with Team Suzuki’s Troy Herfoss in race two.

MotoOnline.com.au called Curtain on Monday afternoon to get his thoughts on the weekend as well as his opinion on the current state of Australian motorcycle racing.

Yamaha Racing Team's Kevin Curtain won the ASBK Supersport round at Queensland on Sunday.

Kev, congratulations on the win yesterday in Supersport, it was certainly a massive battle there in race two with Troy…

Yeah, it was awesome – I had a ball. I think I told you on Sunday afternoon, I haven’t raced that hard or close since I was in the World Supersport.

This year actually marks the first time you’ve raced Supersport in Australia since returning from Europe, but do you remember when the last time you won an Aussie round of the ASBK series was?

Ah, that would probably have to be back in 2003 when I was with Yamaha when the Trinders ran the team. It’s been a while, so it’s good to get another win here so many years later.

Queensland Raceway saw you take Superpole on the Kawasaki in Superbike last year so you obviously are quick around that track, but did you expect to win on Sunday?

Coming into Sunday I was happy to go home with either first, second or third. I’d heard a lot of hype heading into the round, things like Suzuki had found all this horsepower and were doing these fast times and all that kind of stuff, so I was thinking to myself that I didn’t really know what was going to happen.

I knew how fast I was because of the test we had there, but I thought it would be a hard task to win the races. Troy obviously had the problem in the first race, but the second one went down to the line I guess you could say [laughs].

It must be a pretty satisfying feeling then to come out and win against competition that are a lot younger than you?

Yeah, for sure. That’s right. I’m nowhere near as young as Troy is [laughs]!

Not only was Herfoss a huge challenger in the race, but your teammate Rick Olson has also emerged as a great talent. How closely have you been working with him this year?

Pretty close, yeah. I’m always there for them to come up and ask me questions, which they do all the time. For sure I’m not going to tell them everything, because if we go to a track and they’re having problems then I’m not going to walk up and tell them what they’re doing wrong. I’ll wait until they come and ask me and then I’ll give them ideas to help fix what they’re doing.

I think Rick learns way too fast though because he’s come such a long way and is getting harder and harder to finish in front of. I think he’ll go a long way, he’s just got to keep on top of things and learn a lot about the bike.

Some of these young guys can’t think for themselves what the problem is with the bike set-up, they need help from guys like Frank Pons or myself, so it’s just a matter of building experience.

It actually seems as though Yamaha has a variety of young talent in the pipeline both in the factory team and in general support teams, so do you feel it is part of your job to help nurture those young guys?

I think that’s part of my job to be there for when they need help and Frank does work with a lot of those guys. I know for a fact that a lot of my set-up is going to them, so if you put a kid on a well set-up bike then they’re always going to go better than what they went before.

You’ve now won races in both the ASBK and AFXC (Formula Xtreme) this year, so how do the two series compare for somebody with your experience?

Well I guess you could say that there’s definitely a lot more attendance at the ASBK – there’s a lot more happening at the events, if you know what I mean. It’s more exciting.

But as far as competition goes, I’ve got Rick in the Formula Xtreme while the other guys might not be up there just yet.

I think the ASBK is definitely the leader at the moment as far as drawing the crowd, as well as having the sideshows going on also, like the Monster Truck and all that sort of thing happening.

As far as the competition side of it goes, do you believe you winning the ASBK round against the other factory-supported teams kind of makes your wins with Yamaha in the FX that much more satisfying?

Yeah, I think so. Not only for me, but I guess it goes to show a lot of the other guys that the competition is roughly the same right at the front of the field so if someone wanted to go to FX then the competition is also quite strong there too.

Okay well great to see you back on top of the podium in Supersport and congratulations once again.

Yeah, thanks a lot mate.

Curtain was a happy man come Sunday afternoon on the top step of the podium.