Bryan Staring’s return to the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) in 2017 with Crankt Protein Honda Racing has been a modest one, collecting a handful of respectable results along with a podium at Hidden Valley’s fourth round in Darwin. Equipped with the new Fireblade CBR1000RR SP2 for the remainder of the year, the Western Australian is optimistic of finishing strong. CycleOnline.com.au recently tracked down the number 67 for this latest instalment of Fast Thoughts.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Your form in the first half of the ASBK championship…

It’s quite a difficult question to answer really because results wise, I’d say my form hasn’t been real good, but actually, at some point in most races I’ve been inside the top three – I’ve obviously always fallen outside of the top three before the end of the race. There’s been a bunch of reasons really, but anyway, the form has been okay, I just really need everything to come together. I’ve made mistakes along the way, we’ve lost time in the lead-up to the races where we shouldn’t have – basically, by the time the race starts, we’ve missed a small to the puzzle. Overall as a package, we’ve not been ready yet to get on the podium – as far as race pace goes, we probably have been though. That probably contradicts itself a bit and that’s a long-winded answer, but there you go.

The improvements of the Honda Fireblade CBR1000RR SP2…

That’s easy to see, you know, initially straight up in Darwin we were able to get a result straightaway. For me personally, that was big improvement over the results I was getting beforehand. I think that’s a direct reflection of the motorbike – it’s a lot better and we saw that right away.

Claiming an overall win before the season’s end…

Yeah, I can tell you that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Image: Jeremy Hammer (Foremost Media).

Working with Crankt Protein Honda Racing this year…

The team is incredible to work with, I enjoy it so much working with them. They’re very methodical and all the preparation and everything is done really well – there’s never a hold-up at the race track. They’ve been the official team with Honda now for the last 10 years, they know the product well – even with the new bike they know the product well. There is no doubt on the tranquility of the team especially as they’ve won so many championships.

Plans for 2018…

I don’t know, I hope to maintain and keep my place at Honda, but I’ve got no confirmation of that.