Supersport Race
By, Trevor Hedge

Disaster unfolded for the Yamaha Germany team on Friday with both Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes breaking their collarbones. With both their riders indisposed due to their injuries the Yamaha Germany boys packed up and went home!  Another top flight runner to eject himself from the round on Friday was defending World Champion Sebastien Charpentier.  The Frenchman stretched ligaments and suffered a slight fracture in his pelvis.

Pere Riba continued Kawasaki's fight back to Supersport form with pole position. Simone Sanna was the first placed Honda in second place on the grid with Ten Kate man and championship leader Kenan Sofuoglu alongside him while Barry Veneman had upheld Suzuki's honour by putting his Pioneer Hoegee GSX-R600 into the number four spot on the grid.

Kenan Sofuoglu though simply checked out once the lights went out and sprinted away from the field.  As the race approached half distance though Sofuoglu was then caught by the pursuing horde and by lap 11 of the 22 lap race Robin Harms was all over the Turk and on the next lap he even stuck his nose in front briefly a couple of times. Riba was right in the hunt also but just when the battle was shaping up a number of riders back in the pack went down which brought out the red flag and a halt to the race. 

When the race finally got underway again Sofuoglu repeated the same brilliant first lap pace he demonstrated the first time the race started. The break in the race would you would think have allowed the Ten Kate team enough time to fix whatever ailed his CBR600RR in the opening encounter when he drifted back towards his pursuers. That was simply not the case however as once again the Turk broke away from the field over the first few laps only to be chased down and challenged.  And challenged he was with Harms and Fujiwara tussling furiously with each other and Sofuoglu over the final couple of laps. Pere Riba's strong challenge in the opening bout though was to no avail as a stop-go penalty for jumping the gun at the restart cost him the chance of scoring good points.

Sofuoglu managed to fend off his challengers on the final lap to take the win from Harms while Fujiwara rounded out the podium. Briton Craig Jones took an encouraging fourth place. Sofuoglu's win has now given him an early stranglehold on the series with a 27 point lead of Fujiwara and a significant buffer over pre season championship favourites Sebastien Charpentier and Kevin Curtain.