AMA Supersport Championship
For readers looking to get the inside scoop on the Pro Honda Oils AMA Supersport class presented by Shoei, it is one of the closest motorcycles to showroom stock in the AMA Championship series. These machines are based on factory production four-stroke street motorcycles sold in local dealerships. This class requires the use of:
· 0-600cc 4-stroke four- and twin-cylinders
The AMA sets the length of Supersport races to 60 kilometers, a little shorter than the Superbike class. Practice sessions and timed qualifying is used to select who races in the final event for this class. During timed qualifying sessions, a rider’s lap time must be within 110% of the fastest qualifying rider’s best lap time in order to pre-qualify for one of the available grid positions.
Riders listed in the top 10 in points in one or more classes, will be permitted one provisional start per season in each class. Such riders will be placed on the back row of the grid should they not qualify through the normal procedure. Each Supersport Race, riders accumulate points and at the end of the season the rider with the most points wins the Championship.
Points are awarded to the top-30 finishers of a race in all AMA classes according to the following schedule:
Position Points
1 - 36
2 - 32
3 - 29
4 - 27
5 - 26
6 - 25
7 - 24
8 - 23
9 - 22
10 - 21
11 - 20
12 - 19
13 - 18
14 - 17
15 - 16
16 - 15
17 - 14
18 - 13
19 - 12
20 - 11
21 - 10
22 - 9
23 - 8
24 - 7
25 - 6
26 - 5
27 - 4
28 - 3
29 - 2
30 - 1
Rider’s skillful enough to qualify for a final event must participate in the race and complete 50% of the race laps in order to receive points towards the Championship. Other ways to earn points are for:
Pole Position point: 1 bonus point to the pole position winner(fastest qualifier).
Lap Leader point: 1 bonus point to the rider leading the most laps in the race. In the event of a tie for most laps led, the rider in the lead position last will be awarded the bonus point.
In such a competitive class the need for tiebreakers is actually necessary, a few Championships have been decided this way. In the event that there is a tie for a Championship, that tie will be broken based on the number of wins in the series. If that does not break a tie, the number of second-place finishes will be compared between the riders, then thirds, fourths, etc. until the tie is broken. If a tie remains, the best finish in the last race will determine the champion. Ties will be broken as they occur as well as at the end of the year.
