The State of Australian Bike Racing

[f1manoz]

I remember watching RPM not long ago and the subject of Australian motorcycle racing came up, and all they listed were the problems.

The Australian Superbike championship is almost non-existent these days, gets little factory support and the riders are not terribly interested either.

However, Formula Xtreme is now very popular, but is not a recognised series overseas (or so we're told) and so riders who are successful in this series may not get a shot overseas.

It appears nowadays riders have to go to America or Britain to make a name for themselves these days, unlike only a few years back when Aussies who WON Australian Superbike series were chosen on proving their talent IN a purely Australia series.

To rectify this problem, there must be a major overhaul of motorbike racing in Australia. Now how this can come about:

- perhaps a 'marriage' between the Superbike and FXtreme categories.
- increased media coverage. The only time we can catch Australian bike racing is on SBS.
- funding has always been an issue.

Anyone else got any ideas?

[gomick]

formula xtreme and oz superbike should merge.... i dont think the oz sbk title is dead. yamaha are in formula xtreme (curtain, baird, coxhell) and suzuki in oz sbk (giles).

riders are interested.... eg 95% of riders do both series. oz road racing is far from dead. large fields at phillip island oz sbk and winton formula xtreme. just need that factory support from honda and kawasaki and the heads of both formula xtreme and superbike to pull there heads out of there a$$ so that the series can return to great days of the early/mid 90's.

australian champinships should travel to TASMANIA....

[elephino]

What RPM meant by FXtreme not being recognised was that it isn't "The Australian" championship, it is just FXtreme.

Part of the problem is that the SBK series and FXtreme series are trying to compete when really they should be trying to work together. RPMs little piece actually summed the situation up quite nicely and was rather fair considering Ch10 will be broadcasting the FXtreme category this year and could have just made it advertising for that.

[asha]

it seems that most young guys go the Aprilia Cup route.

Which joins the 250cc production class, that was a support race at the phillip island GP.

I'd like to see that get a bit of coverage, rather then just the a small bit on SBS's speedweek.

On that note Speedweek should be given a lot of credit for what they do do!!

[racer69]

It started to go downhill when the superbike series stopped using WSBK machinary, since then it has all gone wrong. It looks though now that it could have been a good decision to go with producton sbk with 1000cc 4 cylinder's, s that is similiar to the 2004 WSB rules. It would definatly benefit from ggod TV and one series.

[Nivola]

does it exist in australia?
Us in WA get screwed by you east coast.
we go there they cant be stuffed comeing here!