Brookes to ride supersport classes at NW200

Milwaukee Yamaha star Josh Brookes is to race in the Supersport races at this year’s Vauxhall International North West 200, alongside his entries in the Superbike class.

The Australian BSB star will ride a specially built World Supersport specification R6 Yamaha at the Northern Ireland event alongside the full FIM specification R1 that he will campaign in both Superbike races. His team mate, Ian Hutchinson, will also ride in both the Supersport and Superbike races.

Former World Supersport race winner Brookes is delighted to be adding two more races to his North West 200 plans, as he explained:

“The fans in the UK probably only associate me with the Superbike class as that’s where they are used to seeing me race, but I’ve a lot of history in the Supersport class. I’ve won a couple of Australian titles and two races in World Supersport, and although I’ve never ridden the R6 before, my team boss Shaun Muir has a decent testing schedule planned before the North West.”

“The racing at the North West is always pretty exciting and the Supersport class produces really close racing. There are usually five or six riders on the mix, hopefully I’ll be one of those this year on the Milwaukee Yamaha.” Brookes said, looking forward to the North West 600cc challenge.

“Originally I hadn’t planned on running Josh on anything other than a Superbike, but having sat and thought about it and dug a bit deeper, the more track time he gets, the better. So we have decided to build him an R6 for the Supersport races, which will help him with his track knowledge for the Superbike races also at the North West 200.” Milwaukee Yamaha team owner Shaun Muir said as he explained the decision.

He started his career on 600s and acquitted himself extremely well with Australian titles and World Supersport wins, and we see no reason why he can’t continue with that on the roads. When I spoke to him about it he was over the moon and something he said he was really keen to do. So we’ve done it.”

Mervyn Whyte, MBE, the North West’s Event Director, is delighted by the addition of a rider of Brookes calibre to two more races at his event.
“Josh made his debut at the Portrush last year and had a great run in the Superstock class. It is great news that he will be riding in four races this year and I don’t think that anyone would be ruling him out as possible race winner.”