Features 30 Apr 2019

Debrief: Bryan Staring

The Bend ASBK winner on his dominant performance at round three.

It was an exceptional weekend at The Bend Motorsport Park for Kawasaki BCperformance’s Bryan Staring, as he captured three stunning victories on his way to the overall in round three of the 2019 Motul Pirelli Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK). Not only that, the Western Australian took on double duties as he filled in for Thitipong Warokorn at Kawasaki Thailand Racing Team in the Asia Road Racing Championship (ARRC), taking out victory in race one before finishing a close second in the final encounter.

Image: Foremost Media.

Congratulations on a mega-successful weekend – three wins in ASBK and a 1-2 scorecard in ARRC. It’s an incredible result, you must be relieved too…

Absolutely, it is a relief. It’s a relief, and I feel it’s also a reward – the reward is the persistence we’ve had with everything throughout the team. They’ve been persistent with me and with all the products and companies that support the team. Although we did have some great results last year, overall it wasn’t a fantastic season, and it’s so nice to have our fortune change this weekend. It’s a result that I feel like we deserve, and it’s fantastic to have the support of all the other competitors and teams. Everyone appreciated our efforts, so that was nice.

Racing in two categories can go either way, but in the end, it seemed to play into your favour.

Yeah, I think that’s fair statement actually. When I first committed to it, there’s always a concern, especially when I saw this event (ARRC) last year, there were so many accidents in the races – I have to say that before coming, it was on my mind and I knew I had to keep my nose clean. The amount of riding to do over the weekend probably wouldn’t help my weekend, but the way it worked out, I think it worked better for me having done more laps, where the ASBK guys didn’t do a lot of laps basically before qualifying started. Everything was positive about this weekend from when we rolled the bike out of the truck, and it stayed really positive until we closed the box back up with the bikes in it.

Image: Foremost Media.

You were strong all weekend, right until the very last race. In that final one, you seemed to be a bit further back than the first two races, but with four laps to go, you went from around fourth to first and just gapped the field. You must’ve still had a fair bit of energy left in you at the end there!

Physically, I got through the weekend okay. I’m glad I don’t have any more to do now [laughs]. If my competitors had the same tyre, it wouldn’t have been exactly the same race – I’m sure of that – but in this sport there are swings and roundabouts, you take advantage when you’ve got them and you do the best when you don’t. That’s the game.

Do you think getting that win in the opening ARRC race on Saturday offered you that boost of confidence or winning feeling again to set you up with added motivation for the ASBK races?

Yeah, I would definitely say that. I think it’s been around 18 months or so since I’ve had a win in ASBK, and honestly, before that, I think it could’ve been more than five years since I’ve had a win in any sort of race. So it’s always nice to win something, whether it’s a hard-fought battle or one where you romp it, it’s always nice to win. I definitely got a confidence boost from that – Broc [Parkes] is a world-class rider, so any chance where you can be competitive against him, I think you can be really proud. That set the standard for what were the three ASBK races to come.

After the first two rounds, which weren’t ideal for you, you’re now right back in the championship hunt and leading the points. That must be really exciting for yourself and the team.

Among our team, we said that although we haven’t had the best start to the season, coming into the third round we were only 20 points down on the championship lead and we hadn’t very strong races at all. Although, the way the points table has worked out, I’ve kept my nose clean and kept myself in the game, and now we’ve been able to capitalise on three pretty big wins. We’ve got a big break now until we continue racing again – I think we’re back in early July, so we have plenty of time to play our cards the way we want to.

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