The difference between the two bikes are pretty substantial. Supersport is more of a standard based 600 where as FX is pretty much all out, do what you want to it as long as it stays as a 600cc machine. The tyres in SS must be 17” D.O.T spec, in other words treaded tyres where as FX are 16.5” slick tyres. The front suspension in SS must be standard whereas we use full Ohlins in FX, the brakes are open in FX where we use Brembo and we have to use standard brakes in SS. This, in theory, would put you at a huge disadvantage to race Supersport in the FX class but at more than one time during this season I have been faster on my Supersport bike. The chassis on Supersport, although mostly standard, works very well. The only decent disadvantage to the FX bike is the lack of power from the SS motor, round about 6-10 BHP.
Anyway, it wasn’t an ideal start to the weekend but we decided to make it as simple as possible and make the best of what we had which was to race the Supersport bike in FX. Throughout the whole weekend we changed very little as the bike was feeling really good, we just made a few small tweaks here and there but nothing major. Also you could say that there is some advantage between staying on the same bike and really getting on top of it rather than swapping bikes and trying to set them both up.
Qualifying for FX went well, being on the first two rows is always the plan and I managed to get 3rd so that was spot on. The FX race was on early Saturday evening as usual. I got a mediocre start leaving me 5th into the first corner. Josh Hayes, the reigning champion had a bit more pace than everybody so I expected him to break away but I didn’t think there was anybody else who I wasn’t capable of staying with.
