By It’s a case of rising forces versus former champions in this years IRRC Supersport championship, with the middleweight class set to provide more exhilarating action within Europe’s premier roads series.
With reigning champion Marek Cerveny stepping up to the Superbike class, 2015 champion Joey Den Besten, on the Performance Racing Achterhoek YZF R6 Yamaha, has to start amongst the prime favourites for title success.
The Dutchman, who is also this year set to make his North West 200 debut, has for the last three years been a consistent front runner around many of Europe’s finest roads circuits.
Photo by Thomas Neidhardt
Laurent Hoffmann, 2012 and 2013 champion, cannot be discounted from making it a hat trick of Supersport titles. The popular Belgian pilots in 2017 Kawasaki machinery, riding under the Delaur Road Racing Belgium banner.
Yamaha France backed Pierre Yves Bian is a definite one to watch, same applies to Kamil Holan who uniquely this year competes in both 600 and 1000cc IRRC classes.
Additional considered front runners include Thomas Walther, Max Gaube, Denmark’s Anders Blacha, Ilja Caljouw and newcomer to the series, Jochen Rotter.
MV Agusta have representation courtesy of Stefan Wauter (Closed Roads Racing), whilst an added interesting entry comes via Suter Moto 2 mounted Hendrik Voit.
The full 2017 IRRC Supersport entry list, is as follows:
4 Stefan Hofer GESSLPOWER/REMUS Racing Team
7 Max Gaube MG Powered by Freudenberg Racing
11 Markus Witte D .X-treme Racing
12 Alex Ruggieri Rugg Race
14 Ilja Caljouw Caljouw Racing
19 Erwan Bannwart SBRacing Team
21 Arnaud Seydoux SP Road Race Team
32 Jochen Rotter Team MR 32
44 Sebastian Frotscher Team Schleizer Dreieck
46 Davy Thoonen Racing Team Thoonen
52 Stefan Wauter Closed Roads Racing
56 Hendrik Voit Road Racing Team Voit
65 Joey Den Besten Performance Racing Achterhoek
66 Daniel Schmidt Black Racing
69 Mike Ceuppens Texas SJL Racing
74 Laurent Hoffmann Delaur Road Racing Belgium
77 Thomas Walther Team Schleizer Dreieck
85 Anders Blacha Road Racing Team Blacha 85
97 Sammy Ahonen Shop97 Finland
104 Chrisian Schmitz LSE Racing
119 Wayne Bourgeois Team WB Racing
174 Kamil Holan Dafit Moto Racing
199 Pierre Yves Bian One Racing Team
216 Kai Zentner Zentner Racing Team
655 Benjamin Beume Flying Farmer Yamaha
Words by Stevie Rial
