BSB might not be the racing Utopia that some say it is.

First OMG pulls out and today FHO calls it a year. Ryde got a ride with a "new" OMG program and Ray got a ride with the Raceway (new?) team but there's cracks in the walls and the basement is seeping water.

Not trying to gloat and it sucks.

 

That article makes it sound like riding for Faye Ho is the problem.

 

I knew something was up with that team. Riders don't up and leave a well funded race team to start their own for no good reason.

 

They up and left as Faye told them months ago she was essentially done with SB and was gonna focus on lower, cheaper classes and female riders.

She seemed to backtrack and keep a skeleton crew and an unpaid rider from World Endurance but once again just decided that even that was gonna get axed.

Not a good look for the series when 2 of the top 4 teams pull out days before the season kicks off.

 

I don't think that BSB has ever been a utopia, just well run with the benefit of a large fanbase and nowhere near the logistical hurdles in the US. I watch a lot of their series, and it wasn't unusual for the commentators to remark on Superbike riders day jobs. These were guys regularly in the top 10.

 

^This.

@418 & @Dave K , would you mind producing some of those pros that I didn't see that go beyond the above? Buncha drama queens.

 

What?

 

Your gonna tell me there hasn't been countless of people in here that have remarked how BSB is the best series in the world and how healthy it is? Especially comparing it to MotoAmerica? And how MA should follow suit with rules and such?

C'mon son.

 

BSB>MA.

 

If you don't make a distinction between "best series/healthy" and "utopia", I'll just concede right now because I can't help you. But words have meanings. If there are no thriving superbike series in the world, then the one that's struggling the least is the best one. You can look at the big picture over a couple of decades, or focus on the 2025 data point. Your choice, I guess.

 

Gotta say. The stands in Assen looked mighty full. Was a nice sight to see.

 

Not that I think that WSBK is very healthy (for a world championship) but I think I should clarify that I'm only comparing BSB to other domestic series.

 

Fair point.

 

I think grid count of full SBK builds is a good indicator of how well a domestic series is doing.. I may be one of the people who has stated that BSB is a decent benchmark to look at. However, i dont think following suit on rules packages is necessarily the best move. Especially if we want to feed riders to the world stage. How many riders from BSb (Post/TC/WC/Motec ECU rule change) have gone on to kick ass in WSBK? there are also a lot ore nuances like cost of travel, parts availability, talent pool, fan base, etc..


Gerloff has regularly had faster pace than the BSB stars (aside from Alex Lowes) that have moved to WSBK. No matter what bike he's been on. I feel like learning a Magnetti Spaghetti spec'd superbike fielded by Chef Stromboli himself put him on much better footing than the BSB boys.

 

Seems like there's confusion between the series and the teams/riders. Teams and riders can fail in any series completely unrelated to the health of the series. I'm not trying to weigh in on BSB being (or not being) healthy, but teams and riders fail in literally every series out there in the world. RNF blew their shot in MotoGP, I know a team dropped out of Moto2 this year because they were just bad at raising money and promoting their sponsors to give them a return on investment. Does that mean MotoGP / Moto2 are not healthy?

The whole causation / correlation thing applies here.

 

^ TBF, Gerloff never raced a Stanboli bike. He left the last year it was Yamaha USA running it. Stanboli was running JD on a bike that year that was arguably more trick than the factory bike (it was the bike he built for Herrin the year before). I was there when JD got his first SBK win in mixed conditions at VIR on that bike and Gerloff (who hadn’t won a SBK race yet) looked liked he wanted to cry and was being a huge sour puss in winner’s circle / to JD (which I don’t think they ever had a good relationship from their 600 days).

But I overall agree with your point.

Honestly, I think logistics are a lot of it. The USA is huge compared to the UK.


USA has a ton of area and most of it is empty vs the UK.


That said, I do see people arguing for a rule set that ironically is similiar to the DMG days. That pretty much was a disaster and the manufacturers said “peace out”. Do people forget pre MA the races were streamed on some crappy website, and it was just pretty much the two Yamaha’s vs Yosh? Like 4 bikes, I think it was like a 4 or 5 race season.

 

You're right, I recalled that incorrectly. For some reason I thought Stanboli had 1 year with GG31..

...And yeah.. you can go back and watch the 2011-2014 season on youtube. It's no where near as good as it is now. Also ASBK has a DMG era similar rule set and its just a bunch of R1's and like 3 Ducati's. with maybe 3 guys at the front. Wild that the R1 is the bike of choice.

 

The thing with BSB is the racing for a years was the best on the planet. Simply no ifs ands or buts about it. Down to the wire, no runaway boring season, easy to understand the rules, teams who have been in it for decades, stellar commentators.

Truth is FHO and OMG were both relatively new outfits and much different from the historic teams which were family run by dealerships.

 

On the positive side, Carl Fogarty will field a BSB team in 2026. Ya that guy carries some clout.

 

How big are the tracks?

I’m sure the R1 is still the bike to have if they raced MotoAmerica at like Summit Point, Roebling Road, and other small tracks. Road America, Cota, even Road Atlanta are big boy pro FIA / FIM caliber tracks.

I just don’t think it has the dig down the straight. It was even hurting for straight line speed against the Gixxer 1k with Toni and Roger at the helm, and that’s a good 7-8 years ago now.