At the start of the season if you placed a bet on Bray Staring to win the 2010 Viking Group Australian Superbike Championship, chances are you would be a very wealthy person right now.

After an 11th-hour switch to Cougar Bourbon Honda Racing when the Yamaha Racing team announced it would be switching to Formula Xtreme for this season, Staring was expected to undergo a learning year in his return to the Superbikes with an all-new team.

But it turned out to be a dream season for the Western Australian ex-Motocross racer, who’s now based on the Gold Coast, and he captured the title with five wins to his name for the year.

The title of Australian Superbike Champion will be added to Staring’s previous achievements of Supersport and 125GP victories, making him the only rider in the history of national road race competition to achieve the elusive ‘triple crown’.

MotoOnline.com.au gave the 23-year-old a call on Monday morning to speak about his impressive feat.

Cougar Bourbon Honda Racing's Bryan Staring is the new 2010 Australian Superbike Champion. Image: TBG Sport/Andrew Gosling.

Bryan, it’s almost 24 hours after you clinched your first Aussie Superbike title. Has it sunk in just yet?

Yeah, I think it is starting to. I have an enormous feeling of satisfaction and for sure, my team and I are pretty chirpy this morning even though we’ve got sore heads [laughs].

But yeah, it makes me smile when I think about it and I think that it’s the best feeling I’ve ever felt in life. It’s just the satisfaction of setting a goal that seems exceptionally high and with the right team of people around me I was able to achieve it.

So yeah, I think it’s starting to sink in.

Yesterday was probably the most difficult conditions anybody could have hoped for to win the title, and things did get a bit hectic in the second race at Symmons, so it must have been a relief to cross the line and get the job done…

I was dying for that race to finish, because the conditions were really, really challenging, mainly for me more so since I was racing for the championship. I struggled particularly with a lack of vision, but I know all the guys did.

I was really struggling to see 10 metres ahead of me, and after about lap five it started getting worse and worse so I went backwards. I was struggling to hang in there, dying to see the chequered flag and I still didn’t know if I had won it when I first crossed the line.

I felt like that many riders had past me, I had no idea what position I was in and I was hating it. I had no idea what the hell just happened, but I know it was a terrible race!

Once I saw the big screen and that I was on the TV then I started to realise I won, because I guessed if Wayne had won the title then it probably would have been him on the screen – I knew I must have went alright [laughs].

Back when you started racing in the 125GP class, did you ever dream that you would win the premier class title with Russell Farrow and the same group of guys that helped you kick-start your career?

Look, it really is an absolute dream come true for all of us, especially when you consider the situation that it was the same team I won my 125GP championship with in 2004.

It was never really the intention that this would ever happen, because Russell’s intention was always to steer me into a good factory team and I think he saw that as his job accomplished.

With the strange situation that we found ourselves in this year he was able to come back onboard, and it is incredible to think that we’re just a larrikin bunch of Perth boys really. It’s an astounding feat.

What were some of the highlights for you this year? That five-race win streak mid-season was a huge achievement.

Definitely. I mean, we spoke about it yesterday, and the best moment of the year was that first race win at Queensland. It was really special and then to back it up with the second race, we were just buzzing. I think we knew we were capable of it, but we didn’t know when to expect it since everything was still so new.

That was unreal, winning our first Superbike race, and yeah, I guess after that we established ourselves as contenders for the championship. That first race win was certainly the best moment of the year in Queensland.

Staring says his first Superbike race win at Queensland Raceway was the highlight of his season. Image: TBG Sport/Andrew Gosling.

Your decision to leave Yamaha was well documented at the start of the year, and possibly questioned by many at the time. Do you feel this is the ultimate answer to those critics? It turns out you made the right decision, which much have been a very difficult one.

There was a fair bit of media coverage over that and I think that any of the critics that we had were proven wrong, probably after the first round, rather than at the end of the year.

It’s crazy because I wasn’t entirely confident when we first made the choice, and it wasn’t until a few days after I made the choice that I really felt like I was doing the right thing.

The whole build up to the first round was crazy, a really, really challenging time. It couldn’t have worked out better, and I guess it just goes to show if you think you’re capable of doing something then you should back yourself.

I was able to surround myself with the right people and that’s how we made it happen.

Some have said in the past that you were a crasher or whatever, and you’ve even said to me recently that crashes aren’t really a huge deal, you know, that many guys in Europe crash each race weekend during practice and qualifying. The saying goes that you can make a fast guy stop crashing, but can’t make a slow guy fast. Having three of the most recognised national championships must also be a great answer to those who labeled you a crasher in the past!

Yeah, that’s right. I mean, I spin myself out when I think of the position that I was in at the end of 2008. I was only lucky to keep my job because I hadn’t had any real good race results apart from a few good race finishes here and there, but most of the time I was either injured or costing teams heaps of money with broken motorbikes.

Even though I hated it at the time, it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me because it was such a good learning curve for me now and I can really draw from all that experience.

And yeah, that’s right like you said, my opinion is that crashing really isn’t that big of a big deal. Quite often a lot of people make too big of a deal over it, because motorbikes have only got two wheels and sometimes they fall over. Really, the only important part is that you don’t crash out of the race.

And now all eyes are on 2011 – do you think you’ll be back to defend the number one plate, or has the time come to take your momentum overseas full time?

What I want to do is to go overseas and obviously with the results I’ve achieved over the last couple of years I feel like I’ve got good momentum, so I should be setting myself new challenges.

As we speak at the moment I’m not exactly sure what opportunities I’ve got, or exactly what’s going to come of them overseas, so I don’t know exactly where I’m going to end up just yet.

If I am in Australia then I’ll definitely have the number one plate on a Superbike and it would be a pleasure to try and defend my championship if that’s what happens.

Well best of luck with those plans and congratulations on the title. I guess I will know exactly how you did it in a few weeks at the Island when I test your championship-winning Fireblade at the Island!

[Laughs] yeah, it will be good to see what you think! Thanks a lot.

Staring was all smiles after his title win, giving him the ultimate satisfaction for 2010. Image: TBG Sport/Andrew Gosling.