This year marks the tenth anniversary of the British Superbike Championship as we know it. In that time, it's gone from being a second-rate, mostly non-televised race series with crowds of just 3000 to being the world's premier domestic championship. With ITV now having agreed to televise every round live to 3.5 million people and crowds of more than 30,000 expected at each event, Visordown asks BSB's champions of the last ten years to tell us what's made British racing great again and what their titles mean to them.
The British Superbike Championship has never been bigger. With ITV announcing it is to show all BSB races live for the first time, the racers will be performing to their biggest ever audience. From Sky's typical viewing figures of around 100,000, ITV expects around 3.5 million viewers to tune in on a regular basis.
And those viewers will be watching a world class series. In the last five years, the British Superbike Championship and its supporting classes have produced no less than five world champions. Troy Bayliss, Neil Hodgson and James Toseland have all gone on to be World Superbike champions while Chris Vermuelen and Karl Muggeridge have both won World Supersport titles and are now front-runners in WSB.
The financial stakes in British Superbike racing have increased dramatically over the last decade, with Niall Mackenzie estimating that all the top teams now have an annual budget of over £1 million while in 1996 a team could have run at the front for around £300,000. Riders' earnings have also increased. With personal sponsorship deals included, a top man ten years ago could have earned up to £100,000 while today's front men can bank up to £250,000.
The turnaround for British bike racing which came in 1996 was long overdue. The old and confusing tradition of running various championships for Superbikes under different titles (the H.E.A.T. Supercup series was the closest to BSB as we now know it) was scrapped and the new, single series called BSB was introduced.
What's more, the series attracted big name riders, sponsors and teams, and the promise of BBC television coverage from every round - as opposed to the occasional and haphazard way bike racing had been shown on TV before. Here's what the champs of the last ten years really think about BSB.
1966 - 1998
Niall Mackenzie on the 1996, 1997 and 1998 wins
Niall Mackenzie remains the only man to have won back-to-back BSB titles. He has also commentated on the championship for Sky TV in recent years and now works for the Rizla Suzuki team.
"If there's one man who almost single-handedly created BSB as we know it today," says Mackenzie, "it's Robert Fearnall. He was managing director of Donington Park in 1996 when BSB kicked off, he set up the MCRCB (Motorcycle Circuit Racing Control Board) and helped broker BBC coverage. He also got the manufacturers and circuit owners together and brought new sponsors in. The British Touring Car Championship was very successful in the early 90s and I think Robert used that format as a role model. It was he who convinced me to race in BSB.
"I had a young family so racing in Britain made sense. I had always intended to return to the UK even just for one race to sign off my racing career, but I enjoyed it so much I stayed for five years!
"The '96 season was a total buzz and in Jamie Whitham I got a team-mate who turned into a best mate. We had a brilliant season on and off the track and it was an unbelievable end when it came down to the last round with Jamie and I tied. We both desperately wanted to win - me because I had a point to prove coming back from Grand Prix, and Jamie to show he'd recovered from cancer. The dignity Jamie showed after I won really impressed me. He really went up in my estimations - and he was already high up anyway."
"After that great season in '96, I felt like my career had been kick-started. I had no more intention of retiring - I just wanted to do it all over again! The championship had been a great success and the BBC TV deal was a big part of that. Even though the races were broadcast a week later, everyone knew when it was on and it gave everyone a structure to work to. It also got high profile sponsors like Cadbury's, Old Spice and Red Bull interested. The paddock was more organised and all the top teams got garages and the correct passes and were just generally much better looked after.
"Both the team and myself prepared as much as we possibly could for the '97 season and I never doubted that I would win. I was fitter than I had ever been and was supremely confident right from the first race. Apart from a few blips I managed to get the job done, and then I started thinking about the hat trick."
With Whitham graduating to WSB and '97 team-mate Chris Walker sealing a tidy deal at Kawasaki, Mackenzie had a new foil.
"In 1998, my new team-mate Steve Hislop really threw a spanner in the works," he recalls. "I underestimated how hard he would push me. I didn't like it but at the same time he motivated me to try harder. It was the complete opposite of my carefree season with Whitham in '96; there was a real atmosphere in the garage.
"Hizzy drove me mad but he focused me at the same time and it was a huge relief to finally win the championship for a third time. I didn't think anyone would be able to win three on the trot for a while so it was nice to be able to do it."
James Whitham's heroic comeback from cancer to take the 1996 BSB season down to the wire is quite rightly the stuff of legend.
"When I look back now I'd been getting thinner from summer '94 onwards," he recalls. "I'd been just not quite right. But you just can't tell at the time, you put it down to all kinds of shit. I ran in '95 with a private Ducati team, Hizzy and I were neck and neck all year, but I was losing weight and my mum was telling me I looked ill.
"I got a one-off ride at the Donington GP and crashed at Redgate. I just remember thinking 'I'm ill'. I crawled to the edge of the track and threw up in my helmet. My doctor said I had a viral infection, but I got a second opinion and was told I had cancer. I had some chemotherapy and tried to race again at Cadwell, but I was as weak as a kitten.
"Five weeks of chemo followed and I finished on 23 December. I got better and stronger, my hair grew back, and I felt better than before. It took me a little bit of time to get going in '96; I crashed in the opening races at Donington, but after that scored good points. But unfortunately Niall finished every race in the championship that year. The fact of it is I won 11 races to his 5, but he beat me to the title. Fair play.
"It's funny, but with bike racing you know the risks. The cancer just sneaked up for no apparent reason. I don't smoke, don't drink much, had a healthy life and it still got me. Racing didn't scare me so much after that."
1999 - 2001
1999 TROY BAYLISS
After a year learning the quirky British tracks on his GSE Ducati, Australian Bayliss took the bull by the horns in 1999 and showed us Poms how to race a motorcycle - on our own turf. He then proved that BSB breeds world class riders by lifting the 2001 World Superbike championship before becoming a factory Ducati and then factory Honda rider in MotoGP.
"I came to BSB basically because I didn't have any other offers at the time," he says. "Darrell Healey (then owner of the GSE Ducati team, now known as Airwaves Ducati) offered me a job, so we just packed up the family and came to England. It was our first time out of Australia so we treated it like a working holiday.
"You're so far away from anywhere in Australia so to get seen by a lot of people you need to be in Europe. I knew absolutely nothing about BSB when I was in Australia, but the competition was on par with what I expected. It's tough, and the first year was a steep learning curve - learning new circuits, a new bike and how to ride in the rain! The first time I went to places like Cadwell was quite difficult but Oulton ended up being my favourite track in the UK.
"Winning the title in '99 was incredible for me - I'd come very close to winning titles in Australia but always ended up second because of injury or some other problem, so BSB was the first real championship I ever won and it was one worth winning.
"I still keep a close interest in the British championship and I went to the last round in '05 as a guest of Airwaves Ducati. It's the only one apart from my factory WSB team which has 2006 factory bikes so that says a lot for the status of BSB."
2000 NEIL HODGSON
No-one who witnessed the 2000 season will ever forget the titanic struggle between bitter rivals Neil Hodgson and Chris Walker. After knocking each other off more times than was decent, the title was almost decided in court. Instead, it came to a head in a last round thriller which quite literally ended in tears - but not Hodgson's. Like Bayliss before him, Hodgson went on to take the WSB title.
"Coming back to race in the UK in 1999 seemed like a drop down after WSB and GPs," he says, "but I was still amazed at how much things had improved since I last raced in Britain in '92 [when he was British 125 champion]. It had gone from being like a club meeting to near-world championship level. Then I attended a round in '05 and the difference was as big again. A lot of the hospitality is better than when I last raced in WSB.
"My memories of the 2000 BSB season are Chris Walker, Chris Walker and Chris Walker! I remember having so much fun but being so stressed at the same time - I really loved it and really hated it. But it was great to be involved in such a close battle for the title. It felt more exciting winning the 2000 BSB title than it did winning the 2003 WSB title.
"Chris Walker and I had to go to court over the Oulton Park incident [where both riders collided]. It was very official and I got branded as a dangerous rider but it was eventually deemed to be a racing incident. Chris and I are fine about it now but it was serious at the time and it's actually quite funny to look back on."
2001 JOHN REYNOLDS
Reynolds was a double Superbike champion in 1992 when there were two series run in Britain. He is the only rider to have won the 'old-style' series and the new BSB format (with the possible exception of Steve Hislop's Supercup win in '95). Reynolds also rode in WSB and GPs in the mid-90s but retired in 2005 after one crash too many. He still works for the Rizla Suzuki team.
"The old two championship set-up wasn't just confusing for the fans, it was confusing for the riders," says Reynolds. "My 1992 Kawasaki team was very professional so everything was well organised from my point of view but I've seen a lot of improvements in other areas. The paddock layout is a lot better and TV coverage has really boosted spectators. I think the quality of riders in BSB is a big factor in its popularity - even back in '92 there were great riders like Rob McElnea, James Whitham and Terry Rymer.
"My 2001 title has always felt like a semi-hollow victory for me because my main title rival, Steve Hislop, was ruled out through injury. It was bad enough that he'd crashed out but it was even worse because I was involved in the crash [riding with an injured foot, Reynolds missed a gear at Rockingham and Hislop ran into the back of him]. That's not to say I couldn't have won the title had Steve not crashed but it had been a fantastic battle up to that point and it was a shame the way it ended."
2002 - 2005
2002 STEVE HISLOP
In 2002, Hislop showed the consistency he needed to match his mercurial talent and won his first BSB crown to add to his 1990 British 250cc and '95 Supercup titles - and those 11 TT wins.
Sadly no longer with us to relate just what winning the title meant to him, Steve best summed up his feelings in his autobiography Hizzy when he said: "After the racing was over, the fact that I was the new British Superbike champion really started to sink in, and it felt a whole lot better than it did at the moment I first realised I had won it. All the traumas and heartaches, all the crashes and injuries, the hospital beds, the worry, the thousands of miles of travelling, the battles to motivate myself, the disappointments, the sackings - it had all been worth it. I had finally proved my worth as a circuit racer to match my already recognised abilities as a pure roads racer and no-one will ever be able to take that away from me."
Steve Hislop was still the reigning champion of BSB when he tragically lost his life in a helicopter crash on July 30, 2003. In that sense he remains undefeated.
2003 SHANE BYRNE
If proof were needed that BSB front-runners are world class competitors, 'Shakey' Byrne proved it by winning both legs of the Brands Hatch WSB round as a wild card.
"I didn't realise how much winning the championship meant to me until I was hurt in practice for the Cadwell Park round," he says. "I knew I could clinch the title there and, after crashing, I thought, 'There's no way I'm letting this go. Whatever it takes I've got to win this race.' If anyone overtook me I passed them straight back. I didn't care where it was or what was going on, I just had to win.
"Winning both Brands WSB races in 2003 brought me to the attention of GP teams and led to my Aprilia ride, but lots of MotoGP bosses don't look any further than the GP paddock for new riders. All the front runners in BSB could go well at world level if they got the chance - it's a world class championship - but when I got the ride with Sito Pons' Camel Honda team, he had never heard of me.
"It's the closeness of the racing which makes BSB so good."
2004 JOHN REYNOLDS
Reynolds became the first man to win BSB on a 1000cc four-cylinder bike since the big capacity fours were introduced in 2002.
"There are still improvements which could be made to the championship but you can always improve. Cadwell Park really needs proper garages on the start line to make life easier for the teams and mechanics. But the circuit owners, and particularly Jonathan Palmer, have put a lot of effort into not only promoting the races but in making the circuits safer, so they deserve a lot of credit.
"I felt like I could have won in 2003 but I broke my collarbone at the start and that ruined my chances. I was determined to make amends in 2004. It was great to win on the GSX-R1000 - the first time a four-cylinder bike had won after six years of Ducati's domination. I was elated, it was a fantastic year for me and the team. I have no regrets about retiring. I wouldn't like to have bowed out if I felt I still had a full tank of fuel but I'd run it dry. I'll be hell-bent this year on helping Rizla Suzuki win the title again."
2005 GREGORIO LAVILLA
Spain's Gregorio Lavilla came, saw and conquered at his first attempt. As a foreigner who knew little about BSB, the former WSB star offers a unique insight into the series.
"I just knew BSB was a very fast championship," he says. "And with my experience of racing with wildcard BSB riders in World Superbikes, I knew they were competitive. In Spain we don't get reports of BSB but the magazines print pictures of it because the racetracks are so unusual. I saw pictures of bikes flying over the Mountain at Cadwell and things like that.
"I didn't have any expectations of winning when I came to Britain. As the races went on, I saw that there was a chance to win the title. More than that, it was important to prove I could ride at the maximum level every week, learn new tracks and set the bike up well. Some people would think if I can go to BSB and win first time out then it must be a low level but it wasn't like that. I had to ride at a very high level. It was never easy.
"If I could change anything about BSB it would be some of the circuits. Three or four are good, the rest so-so and two are really difficult and dangerous. If those tracks could be changed a bit then you would have like a mini world championship.
"I have many happy memories but the Donington round was good. Kiyonari was just one point ahead and to beat Honda and take a 13-point lead into the final round was great. The last round at Brands was also special because many people from Spain were there and we could really enjoy winning the title."
