Image: Russell Colvin.

Kawasaki BCperformance’s Bryan Staring stunned on Sunday by challenging for victory in race two of the YMF Australian Superbike Championship at The Bend, just 24 hours after being forced out of the opening affair with severe tyre degradation.

The lone primary team on the Superbike grid to use Dunlop, South Australia’s abrasive surface around the world-class 4.95-kilometre International Circuit proved a challenging one for BCperformance and Dunlop to master during testing and through much of race-week.

Critical set-up changes and tyre pressure revisions overnight placed both Staring and teammate Kyle Buckley back in the frame for strong finishes, as Phillip Island winner Staring surged from seventh on the grid to second in race two, only 0.220s from victory.

The afternoon was almost as strong for the lead Ninja ZX-10R rider, working his way to fourth prior to the race being red-flagged and ultimately declared following six laps when he was preparing to mount an attack on the podium trio. Buckley was far improved as well, going 12-10 across Sunday’s races to rescue the round for team green.

“I am somewhat disappointed because we had so much potential,” Staring recalled. “We just didn’t get it quite right, so that was frustrating, as we showed in today’s races that we were capable of a much better result. A second and a fourth isn’t a complete disaster, but the DNF definitely hurt. It’s all basically tyre pressure-related, but also temperature-related as well.

“The knife in the gut for us on Saturday was that we got the red flag, then once we sat on the grid, we lost that bit of temperature and that was it for us from the first lap of the restart. It was completely impossible from there – that’s the type of sensitivity that we were dealing with and the red flag killed us.”

With the bulk of the grid transferring to Pirelli rubber over the course of the past 12 months, including each of the factory-supported organisations, data collection for Dunlop via Kawasaki BCperformance has become increasingly vital this season, especially at the all-new venue of Tailem Bend.

Kelvin Reilly, Kawasaki BCperformance team owner, said: “It was a good day today after struggling in the early part of the round. Basically, we were in search of our one-lap pace, when we should have concentrated on the race-distance where we were always strong.

“To watch Bryan’s progress through the field on Sunday was phenomenal, it was just brilliant and Kyle was impressive in races two and three as well. We had the pace, but unfortunately the final race was red-flagged, so I would like to thank the entire team and Dunlop for working so hard together all – we know the direction we need to go now.”