In a few days from now Josh Day will have a final shot at taking his Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R to the top of the European Superstock 600 Championship. We explore this high-flying Kawasaki effort. Superstock 600: Day Of The Ninja Purely statistically speaking the Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R not been as widely chosen as a race package in the European Superstock 600 Championship as some others, but in 2011 Josh Day and his Revolution Racedays Kawasaki squad have been showing most other teams and riders just what they have been missing out on. The results speak volumes. After nine rounds, and with only one round to go at Portimao on October 16, Day is still in the hunt for the overall championship win, sitting in second place with a 19-point gap to series leader Jed Metcher. He is also six points ahead of Michael van Der Mark, making it a three-way fight for final glory. Day found the going tough in some of the early rounds, and the season has been a little-up-and-down in general, but as his experience has grown and the season has worn on Joshua has posted five podiums in the nine rounds so far – including two superb wins at Silverstone and Imola. In a class which allows very little change to the machines from those you or I could buy from a Kawasaki showroom almost anywhere in the world, this is proof positive of the middleweight Ninja’s track abilities in the right hands. Josh could not agree more. “We have a Kawasaki winning now and we have more than one race win, so that people realise it is not a one-off,” stated Josh. “We have been on the podium in five out of the first nine races, so that shows the real position of where we are.” Day has taken it to the competition whenever and wherever possible and that has been a good reward for his team’s belief in their 22-year-old American rider, bringing him over to Europe for a full season after Day put his toe in the water with them in 2008. “I think I have made the team happy so far and these are the kind of results they have been expecting,” said Josh. “The 600 has not been able to show those results in the stock class that often before but now we have been able to figure it out. I like the bike and we have it set-up and working good. The bike likes what I am doing. We had a few not so good races in the beginning of the year until we got it all figured out and got comfortable on it. Same with the tyres; I was more used to another tyre brand than the Pirellis, but we got it all worked out.” After his victories in Silverstone and Imola, two very different circuits, Day now has one hurdle left, the final round in Portugal. He knows he has to go out and aim for a win first of all, and hope that will be enough to keep the twin threats of Metcher and van der Mark far enough behind to let him win what would be Kawasaki’s first Superstock 600 Championship at this level.