Wayne Maxwell says change is required to ensure the ASBK and road racing in general continues to grow. Image: Toby Lynch.

Current Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) points leader Wayne Maxwell has issued a personal challenge to International Entertainment Group’s Yarrive Konsky to “take the series to another level”.

Team Suzuki’s Maxwell has long been one of the most vocal riders when it comes to the topic of the ASBK’s development, and believes now is a crucial time to act in order to improve various factors of the sport for next season.

“For road racing we need to get to another level,” Maxwell told CycleOnline.com.au. “The sport is probably about 20 percent of where it could be considering the funding they’ve got, and they’ve got enough to do a better job, so hopefully they can turn it around.

“It does concern me because, Yarrive himself, not so much the IEG team as whole, blames the teams and the regulations as to why the sport is struggling.

“But when he doesn’t follow through on things he said he is going to, like a personal commitment to me about television, it will be interesting to see what the outcome is.

“When my personal sponsors, who have some but not a huge understanding of the sport, ring me and say they watched Australian racing the other day, and I wasn’t on there, I have to explain that’s the other championship.

“Then they say to me, ‘Well, why don’t you do that championship, at least you get television there?’, and I have to explain that we’re not on there because the promoter has dropped the ball.”

Maxwell is careful to point out he doesn’t want to be critical without offering constructive feedback, saying he believes IEG has the know-how and backing to further the sport’s development.

“I think Yarrive and the team at IEG are extremely capable, but it’s going to take a strong focus,” he added. “He seems to have a good understanding for Supercross, and we can see by the advertising in Darwin that it is all about Supercross. That’s a concern in itself, but that’s another subject.

“I personally put the challenge out there to Yarrive to rise to the occasion – to listen, and to take this on. The regulations are good, the parity is good, and lets hope that 2014 is the best year yet.”

IEG advised last week that it had secured a deal to broadcast the remaining two rounds on SPEEDWEEK, SPEED TV in Australia and internationally via Motors TV, ESPN and Fox.

According to the announcement, “races and interviews from the remaining events” will also be streamed live on the series website.