CycleOnline.com.au spoke to a handful of industry players about the areas they feel are of top priority as Motorcycling Australia (MA) looks to rebuild the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK).

Image: Andrew Gosling

John Redding – Manager, Yamaha Racing Team
We need to look at what MA and its ASBK promoter have to offer compared to whatever else is available, specifically, the AASA (Australian Auto-Sport Alliance)-sanctioned ASC (Australasian Superbike Championship). I think both the promoters and sanctioning bodies have forgotten that the riders and the industry are their customers and they need to provide them with a product they both need and can benefit from. We then need to breakdown the needs of the real privateer riders, many who race because it is their sport, and the factory and heavily sponsored teams who race because they have sponsors who require media exposure. As we represent both a factory team and a support rider program I think we are the one of a very few who can provide a view from both sides of the fence. Most of your other commentators will only have their vested interests as a view point. There are a number of our support riders who race simply because they are sportspeople and achieving championships is important to them and their supporters. There are others such as the factory and well supported privateer teams who have similar aims but have to take into account the needs of the sponsors who pay for a lot or a little of their racing program. To simplify things its a matter of what do we get out of it for what we put in? The ASBK needs to consider all these points and address them all if it wishes to compete. Ideally the solution is to combine the two series but my personal view is, that with the current power players in both MA/ASBK and AASA/ARTRP (Australian Road and Track Rider Promotions), this will never happen. This is not entirely due to egos but also due to a different vision of a national motorcycle road race series being a business or a sport. The privateer and factory racer are currently given both options and are voting with their wallets and entries. Personally I have a vision of road racing becoming so much more cost-effective and based on what we buy from the show room floor, where the delineation between those who have little cheque books and those who have large cheque books, and those who have factory connections and those who have none, mean so much less than the current systems in either series. Right now the ASC is closer to this vision but still being influenced by too many vested interests I feel. Admittedly this vision does give certain makes advantages year in, year out, but on the flip side parity allows someone to play god with rules which I do not agree with either. Admittedly factory teams will always be hard to beat regardless of their equipment level, their investment in full time expertise and labour hours compared to privateers who can only work after hours, is always going to be a unequal battle. Evening up the playing field in as many areas as possible gives the privateer and amateur a better chance of at least being competitive with the factory teams.

Peter Doyle – National technical officer, Motorcycling Australia
It’s hard for me to comment on the past because I didn’t get here until the end of March. I’ve spoken to a lot of people, and there’s a lot of issues out there, and claims, some of which are true and some maybe not. It’s really hard to come to a conclusion. I hadn’t even been to an ASBK race until earlier this year in Queensland. That was the first one I went to since 1999. It wasn’t a great sight, that’s for sure. Obviously the promoter of the series has run into some issues over the recent years, and I think that’s probably been detrimental to the series. It is difficult to look at the big picture, because I haven’t actually been here. I’ve just come in and seen the end result. There’s plenty of opinions, and mine’s just another one. There’s not many options. Should the clubs and states be re-engaged? Probably that’s a natural progression for MA. Should they go and find another promoter that wants to get involved? That’s another option. And there’s even been discussion of having a combined series with the other series that’s out there. It’s fairly simple. There’s not too many other options. One thing I’ve been used to in the States recently is these big changes. The US has been going through a similar thing. They had a raging change in 2009, and they have not had a consistent technical rules package since. My understanding is they’re going to upend it again in 2015. And their series is quickly disappearing down the toilet as well. Australian rules are as close to production bikes as you’ll probably get as a national series in any country in the world. They’re essentially what we call Superstock bikes, from the ’90s. They’ve got stock wheels, stock frames, stock swing-arms, pretty much stock everything. You put some suspension and tyres on it, some brake lines and pads, and off you go. They’re not technically very complex motorcycles. I don’t really understand what all the debate is about rules.

Image: Toby Lynch

In BSB (British Superbike Championship) they run regulations based on World Superbike, so that means the bikes are worth a couple hundred thousand dollars. Personally I think that’s great. But I don’t think it’s feasible here. Second all their racetracks are situated in an area in the size of Victoria, and they probably have twice as many as us. Australia is similar to the US then because we have these huge distances between racetracks, which make it expensive. Rider safety in the BSB doesn’t appear to be a huge priority either, if you look at some of the tracks they’re racing on. I’m not pointing that out as a negative, but in Australia, it appears the trend is towards working with safer tracks, where in BSB they say these are the tracks, and don’t really care what you think. That obviously gives access to more venues. Talking to people there, people say it’s a great show, a good TV package and strong entries. They have a bunch of wealthy businessmen who run most of the teams, but the facts are that behind that, the amount of people getting paid, and amounts they are getting paid, has been reducing rapidly over the years. It’s still successful on the face of it, and so is Spain. The rest of the series in the world don’t appear to be exactly shining. Trying to organise a series the size of the ASBK and road racing in general sees a few of the same issues Supercross does. The costs of venues and so on is way beyond what people think. It’s not like a Thumpernats series where you find a paddock and throw a few tyres in and away you go. The road racing side is much more complex and expensive. It’s not something that will happen overnight.

Kelvin Reilly – Team owner, BCPerformance Bikesconnect
MA has to work with us, the teams and the riders across Australia, to try to bring it together. I would like to see there be one single championship in Australia next year. Obviously the ASC have their own intentions, and I’m sure the ASBK will have their own intentions too, but for the most part I believe there isn’t enough room for two. Whether the ASC is right, or the ASBK is right, it doesn’t matter. Obviously the ASC has a few things I’d like to see changed and the ASBK has a massive amount of modifications, but to be fair, there can only be one if the sport is to prosper. I believe they have to talk to Terry O’Neill. It may be a difficult situation for all involved, but I can’t see how they’re going to gain the trust of the rest of the paddock. They’ve made quite a large mess of it. If you look at all of the other successful championships around the world they have involvement from sponsors from outside the sport. I come from the BSB and that’s a big strength. Stihl is one of their major sponsors and they supply gardening products. As a whole I know the Australian racing scene is a lot smaller than the BSB but there still can be things we can learn from them, and the Spanish championships. One of the biggest things I’ve noticed is that, apart from the MRRDA and the track days the separate companies organise, there is not much input into the junior riders in Australia. I think that’s one of the biggest issues we have over here. There needs to be work with teams and the media to help riders come through. The British have a system right through from 11 years old, and the Spanish have a fantastic system from when the kids are virtually born. We need to look wider like this in Australia, otherwise the numbers will dwindle. To be fair, it’s not just the organisers and MA, the teams need to put the effort in as well. And to be fair, the teams in Australia have got to put a good show on so that people want to come and watch us. This new chap that has a long road ahead of him to gain the trust of Australian road racers, especially the privateers.

Image: Toby Lynch

Jamie Stauffer – Rider, Team Honda Racing
It’s hard to know where to start. In the first place there needs to be just one series, and one focus. And then it needs to be run in conjunction with the FIM. They need a good rules package in place, that suits everyone across the board. There needs to be a majority vote on what will work and an agreement to work forward together, it will never work if everyone goes off and tries to do their own thing. I would like to see something done so that all manufacturers are supporting the one championship and have the same goals. They also need someone decent to run the championship. In the past there’s been a bad feeling about going to ASBK meetings and everyone’s pissed off before they even get there because they’re owed money or promised something and haven’t gotten it. It would be good for them to look at what the BSB does. It’s not going to work exactly the same but there are some things which will work. Maybe there is too much focus on making it so cheap. If we make it big enough then more people will want to be involved and there will be more investment. It’s also good to see Peter (Doyle) involved. That is a good step in my mind. He’s been around for a long time and can only be good for the sport, whatever direction it takes.

Aaron Morris – Rider, Maxima Yamaha
The main thing for me is to work out how to get people there. Admittedly we have had further rounds in FX this year, but most of them are usually quite close. Whereas ASBK was trying to do Darwin and that, which adds that cost factor. Cost is a big thing they need to look at. The lower costs you can keep, the more chance you have of people going to it. To me, it needs also have some sort of control tyre that lasts a fair bit, so for starters you’re not spending all your money on tyres. Towards the end we were still going through seven sets of tyres a weekend at ASBK. I think in FX we’re using three, maybe four at the moment. One of the biggest troubles was obviously trying to get people to compete. We didn’t go to the first round because we just heard a lot of people saying that they weren’t going and there was too much confusion. When a lot of people are talking like that then you start losing faith. There’s got to be more structure there to attract more people. Television makes a big difference too. As soon as you confirm that then you can pass that info to the sponsors. It all comes back to money, and the more exposure we can give our sponsor for the same amount of money, the better. FX has TV at every round, and a lot of people are now expecting it and getting to watch it which is good.