Fabrizio is fast and confident heading into WSBK season 2010. Is he the title favourite? Image: Andrew Gosling.

WORLD SUPERBIKE
World Superbike 2010 is go, with the season opener just two days away to be held at Phillip Island in Victoria this weekend.

There seems to be a lot of hype for World Supers this year as the industry looks forward to kicking of motorcycle racing on both an international and national scale after a pretty short off-season.

I’d suspected that Ducati Xerox Italian Michel Fabrizio would be strong this year, and judging by the tests that were held at the Island on Sunday and Monday then its clear that he’s going to be a contender for the title.

In fact, right now you would have to say Fabrizio would be a title favourite f he can keep his cool, but you can never rule out teammate Nori Haga once the race starts.

The interesting thing at the Island test was the dominance of the Ducati contingent. Not only was Fabrizio the fastest, but the Althea team of Shane Byrne and Carlos Checa have both been incredibly strong, as has Jakub Smrz.

Portimao’s first official test was all about the British riders who were best, but after Phillip Island it’s going to be really difficult to predict who will be the fastest come this weekend – all of the times were incredibly strong at the test though.

As for the Aussies, it’s going to be a hard weekend for them this weekend if the test results are anything to go by.

Troy Corser was top local in 13th, although he was only just over one second off Fabrizio’s best, which indicates just how tight it’s going to be in 2010.

Chris Vermeulen continued to develop the Kawasaki and only ended up 16th, however the interesting thing is that his best lap basically equalled his fastest race lap of 1:32.8 in last year’s MotoGP event on the Suzuki GSV-R. We all know that the Kawasaki SBK isn’t the best on the grid, however what does that say for Suzuki’s GP runner?

Even though Andrew Pitt was 19th on the Reitwagen BMW, his test was actually quite positive. After lapping in the 36s at the ride day just six days earlier, Pitt was able to get down to 33s at the test and that is one team that will improve dramatically. To already be within a second of factory riders Ruben Xaus and Corser is a good effort.

Perhaps the Aussie with the most eyes on him this weekend is Josh Brookes, called up at the last minute to replace countryman Broc Parkes on the CRS Honda team for the weekend before switching back to British Superbikes with HM Plant Honda for the rest of the year.

Brookes knows that it was never going to be easy on a privateer team in WSBK, but you can bet that it’d be irritating him languishing down in 20th after two days of testing – especially since he missed half of the second day with mechanical problems.

Testing is one thing, but racing is a whole different story, so I look forward to seeing our guys stand up and give the local crowd something to cheer about come Sunday afternoon.

AUSTRALIAN SUPERBIKE
The Viking Group Aussie Superbikes will also kick-off their season this weekend alongside the World Supers at the Island, with Ducati Motologic’s Jamie Stauffer the favourite heading into the round according to our most recent Moto Poll.

Stauffer is the favourite with 36 percent of the votes ahead of reigning champion Josh Waters’ 28 percent, while Honda riders Wayne Maxwell and Glenn Allerton are currently at 22 and 15 percent respectively.

That’s not to say that riders such as Shawn Giles, Shannon Johnson or Dan Stauffer won’t shine, it’s just we didn’t have the room for more than four in the Poll and the four selected have the most recent runs on the board in the Superbike class if you include championships and race wins.

We kicked off our ASBK tipping competition in the forum this week, so make sure you get on there and put in your tips because we plan on having some pretty cool prizes up for grabs by the season’s end.

There was speculation this week that the ASBK Dunlop control tyres were MIA, sending panic through various industry personalities, however the word is that they are here and ready for the weekend. Was there any problem at all? I’m not sure, but I did receive quite a few calls with concerns earlier in the week.

Despite round one being this weekend, there hasn’t been any confirmation on Suzuki’s factory team to date. Yes, they’ll be back, but the entry forms suspiciously are missing the words Joe Rocket in between Team Suzuki so far. There have been rumours that Rockstar is on board, but they haven’t been confirmed either.

We also have no confirmation whether or not Motologic has secured a title sponsor for the 1198s of Stauffer or Burgess, while this weekend will be the first time we’ll see Bryan Staring’s FTS in its finished paint scheme. The question is, will it have a title sponsor?

We’ll also be anxious to see what the guys at Evolution Sports Group come up with on the factory KTMs of Johnson and Chris Trounson, because we haven’t seen them completed in the final colours either.

There have been many rumours surrounding Glenn Allerton’s team structure, including some confusion since he is managed by ESG’s management side of the operation, however I’m hearing that there could be something exciting in the works on the former champion’s front.

Stay tuned…

One quick final note for Aussie road racing, young Glenn Scott will be featured on Australia Story on the ABC next Monday, 1 March. Scott, a former 125cc Grand Prix Champion, will race a BMW S 1000 RR in Formula Xtreme this season.

MOTOGP
While the race weekends for WSBK and ASBK have taken much of the spotlight for this week, don’t forget that the premier class MotoGP teams are back in Malaysia for their second pre-season test of the year at Sepang.

The test kicks off today for the test riders before the big boys will be on track tomorrow and Friday, however remember that Jorge Lorenzo will be absent after injuring himself in a Motocross training incident.

There’s just over one month remaining before the season commences, which will be mega under lights in Qatar on 11 April. Let’s hope Garry McCoy’s FB Corse team will be ready so we’ll see another Aussie on the grid alongside Casey Stoner come race time.

AMERICAN SUPERBIKE
With Mat Mladin’s retirement and Aaron Gobert announced to be returning to Australia to contest Australian Supersport in 2010, Australia will have just two riders to follow in the spiralling AMA Superbike Championship for 2010.

Victorians David Anthony and Trent Gibson have both confirmed they’ll be racing starting at Daytona’s season opener next weekend, both on Suzuki GSX-R1000 machinery in the American Superbike class.

Meanwhile, Gobert is still a possibility to contest selected rounds of AMA Superbike on factory machinery, however budget restraints there right now are derailing plans of many top riders including multiple-time champion Jamie Hacking, Gobert and even WSBK-bound Roger Lee Hayden.

AUSTRALIAN MOTOCROSS
Some exciting news for two-stroke fans came through late yesterday afternoon from Motorcycling Australia confirming that 250cc two-strokes will be permitted in the Pro Lites class at this year’s MX Nationals.

This is a move that has worked on an international scale in recent seasons and has been speculated to be coming to Australia for over a year now, so it’ll be interesting to see if anybody goes for the two-stroke option.

Will we see a 250cc two-stroke in the Pro Lites class at the MX Nationals? They're now legal!

In fact, we are hearing that recently retired Cameron Taylor is considering riding a Yamaha YZ250 in the Lites class for a bit of fun since he is from the old school era. Now that would be cool!

In other news, I was out riding with Jay and Ryan Marmont yesterday, as well as Daniel McCoy, with all three looking strong in the lead-up to the Nationals this year.

Jay is still riding a near-stock 2010 model YZ450F while Doggy is feeling at home on the KTM again, so it should be a big year yet again for the popular racing brothers.

Interestingly, McCoy is fresh back from the U.S and he brought home Showa suspension from Pro Circuit that he’ll use on the KTM this season under the Coastal banner, replacing the regular WP suspension.

Speaking of KTM, I had word late last week that it’s looking more and more likely that Ty Simmonds will ride a 350 at the Nationals, the bike expected to arrive in the next fortnight.

AMERICAN SUPERCROSS
I was lucky enough to get through to Jake Moss for the Moto Talk chat yesterday despite calling him when it was almost 10.00pm in California, but it was refreshing to hear him so positive even though he finished 12th at round one.

It’s usually all or nothing for the Moss brothers, so it’s good to see Jake easing his way back into the fray after sitting out many months with a broken wrist since October last year. Don’t be surprised to see him bounce back for a podium before the season’s end before going on to a strong outdoor season.

The news isn’t so good for brother Matt Moss, who will possibly miss the entire Supercross season due to a scaphoid injury that required a second surgery recently.

Matt missed the first part of the season due to a compressed vertebra suffered at Brisbane Super X, but in the meantime he had his scaphoid fixed and it is yet to heal 100 percent. Expect him back in full force for the Nationals, all going well.

That’s it for today, thanks again for reading and don’t forget to put your tips in for the ABK Tipping Competition. For dirt fans, we’ll also have tipping for the MX Nationals and Super X series.