AMA Superbike at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

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Superbikes

Superbike racing is a category of motorcycle racing that employs modified production motorcycles. more...

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Many countries such as the Australia, Canada, Japan, United Kingdom, and the United States operate national superbike championships, and a World Superbike (WSB) championship has run since 1988.

The Superbike category is highly popular with manufacturers. Because the race bikes are built from production road bikes, the marketing value of a Superbike victory is significant. A common motorsport expression is \"Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.\"

Overview

As a production racing competition, WSB has a series of regulations laid down by the FIM managing body.

Pre-2004 regulations can be briefly summarised as follows:

Production Motorcycles - defined as 150 models of the entered machine, with 75 available for inspection by 31 January in the year of entry and the remainder by 30 June ; Capacity - which depended on the number of cylinders. 2cylinders up to 990cc, 3cylinders up to 900cc, and 4cylinders up to 750cc;

Pre-2004, winning in the series swung between the Honda CB750 (4-cylinders), and the Ducati 916 and its derivatives (2-cylinders). After three years of Ducati winning with Carl Fogarty, Honda introduced the 2-cylinder VTR-1000 SP1/RC51 and won in 2000 with Colin Edwards. Ducati then won the crown back with Troy Bayliss on the Ducati 998, while Edwards regained the crown in 2002

2004 onwards

All the development of new machines required money, and while WSB was a Ducati racing focus, and Honda had the money, other motorcycle companies didn't. As other manufacturers dropped their support from \"official factory\" to support of \"privateer\" teams, the FIM realised they needed to change the series or watch it end.

As a result, in 2002 the FIM started discussions on a new series of regulations that would allow wider manufacturer support. The first change was consistent capacity--1000cc for all entrant machines irrespective of the number of cylinders. This was a 'standard' production engine size sold worldwide, allowing manufacturers to absorb racing costs into production- machine development, and market these developments. However, as this would result in an unfair power advantage for four-cylinder machines, air-restrictors were introduced - one restrictor plate per intake port, with sizes of 50mm for twins and 32.5mm for fours

The second regulation change was the use of a \"control\" or \"spec\" tyre, to be supplied to all competitors. The bid process was won by Pirelli, who supply between five and seven different compounds per race. Though top and cornering speeds have fallen, the racing has become closer and safer.