Auckland youngster Aaron Hassan has some big boots to fill, but he reckons he’s got what it takes.

The just-turned 15-year-old from Westmere saw his elder brother, Jaden, take a Yamaha R6 and battle his way to runner-up spot in the 600cc supersport class in last year’s New Zealand Superbike Championships and now he’s hoping to do the same, or better, although probably not this season.

The four-round 2014 series kicks off at Mike Pero Motorsport Park (Ruapuna), just outside Christchurch, this weekend.

Aaron Hassan knows that winning the class this season is perhaps not a realistic prospect, the class brimming with vastly-experienced international talent, but he would be satisfied if he can make some progress in his debut year on the 600cc Yamaha R6.

Hassan raced his way to third overall in the 125cc class at the superbike nationals last season but has already impressed in his first early forays aboard the 600cc bike.

The bike he will now ride is an ex-Jake Lewis Yamaha R6, one of the same bikes that the Rangiora teenager rode to third overall in the 600cc supersport class last season, before he headed overseas and won the European Junior Cup.

“I learned a lot from racing in the 125cc class last season, but I was getting too tall for the small bikes and so I had to move up,” Hassan explained, the teenager already over six feet (183 cm) tall.

He couldn’t start racing until he was aged 13, but he has packed a lot into the past couple of seasons.

“You can get a dispensation to race the 125cc class as a 13-year-old, but not for the 600cc bikes, so I haven’t done a lot of riding yet on the 600cc bike,” he said.

“I have only raced the Yamaha R6 about five times but it’s an awesome bike.

“This year is definitely a learning curve for me, a season in which to get comfortable with the bike. I just want to get faster.

“I broke my collarbone and tore my pectoral muscles about seven weeks ago, at the final round of the Winter Series at Taupo, but I’m recovering well and getting stronger all the time.”

Hassan will share the pits this season with fellow Yamaha R6 hero Toby Summers.

Manukau’s Summers won the F2 (600cc) class at the three-round Suzuki Series, the traditional season opener, which wrapped up on the streets of Wanganui on Boxing Day.

That result possibly makes Summers one of the favourites to win the 600cc supersport class in the nationals this season, although both Summers and Hassan are well aware there are many other top riders who will threaten for the title in 2014, riders such as a Christchurch’s defending national champion John Ross (Suzuki), Wanganui’s Jayden Carrick (Suzuki), Orewa’s Avalon Biddle (Suzuki), Auckland’s Daniel Mettam (Honda), Clive’s Adam Chambers (Honda), Christchurch’s Seth Devereux (Kawasaki), Tauranga’s Rhys Holmes (Yamaha) and Christchurch brothers James and Alastair Hoogenboezem (both Suzuki), to name just a few.

© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com