Source: Yamaha Motor Australia.

Yamaha Racing Team manager John Redding has welcomed the flood of top quality competition transferring from the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) to the Australasian Superbike Championship (ASC) for 2014.

YRT has been involved in the ASC series – formerly Formula Xtreme and FX-Superbikes – since 2010, enjoying an unbeaten run of four premier class championships in succession with Kevin Curtain and Broc Parkes amongst a host of supporting titles.

Yamaha’s signing of ASBK number three Robbie Bugden during the off-season was one of the first in a string of major developments recently, now joined by major ASBK teams Next Gen Motorsports and Cube Racing in the transition.

Current ASBK champion Wayne Maxwell is also on the verge of finalising plans to contest the ASC series after Team Suzuki’s collapse, while speculation mounts that the factory Team Honda Racing effort will be next across.

Redding and Yamaha Motor Australia have long been supporters of the more standardised regulations imposed by ASC officials, preparing to defend the superbike title with a broad rider line-up of Bugden, Curtain, Rick Olson and Cru Halliday – all multiple-time national champions across a variety of categories in Australian and New Zealand.

“In the past people have accused us of cherry picking and I don’t believe that’s ever been the case,” Redding told CycleOnline.com.au. “We welcome the competition and in fact we were very supportive of the whole idea and concept of one series when it was being discussed between MA and ARTRP.

“We were equally as disappointed that it didn’t happen. I think it all comes back to whether or not the country can truly sustain two major national series and it would appear that both the the factory teams and privateers are voting with their entries.”

As competitors flock to ASC in a defining turn of events that has cast the ASBK’s future in doubt, Redding is confident the current situation justifies YRT’s decision to switch five years ago.

“A few years ago when we were the first major team to move to Terry [O’Neill’s] series back in 2010, when it happened one time or another we were either going to be proven fools or visionaries,” he added. “Well, it would look like perhaps the second is what may have happened.”

Following Bugden’s shake down the team’s 2014 YZF-R1 during a ride day at Queensland Raceway in January, YRT will now embark on an increased pre-season testing schedule in the lead-up to Wakefield Park’s season opener on 14-16 March.