GEPA pictures/ Gold and Goose/ David Goldman

From grass-roots club racing, to World Championship level, Supersport racing has, for as long as plenty of us can remember, been home to some of the closest, most exciting racing going. Since 1989 the ?axe-murderers? have entertained BSB crowds with the thrills, spills and fairing bashing antics of characters such as Leon Camier, Cal Crutchlow and Sam Lowes. And those are names that not only became British Supersport Champions (in 2005, 2006 and 2010, respectively), but went on to do (and are still doing) pretty impressive things on the world stage. And they?re by no means the only current world class riders to have risen through the ranks of either the British or World Supersport 600 Championships, so I think we can all agree just how important the class is, as far as the bigger picture of motorcycling racing is concerned.
But there?s a problem. And it?s a problem that has been causing an increasing amount of concern for some years now. You see, a racing class for production based 600cc sportsbikes is all good and well whilst manufacturers are still making them. In the 90s and 00s, all the Jap factories, and some of the European ones, were churning out Supersport machines like they were going out of fashion. Unfortunately they were going out of fashion, and nowadays, unless you want to ride a ten year old relic of a thing, the only real options are Yamaha?s R6, or Kawasaki?s ZX-6R (which isn?t even a 600 ? it?s 636cc). Tha...