If you were at the Sepang F1 Circuit a couple of weekends ago, pat yourself on the back for making a great decision. You would have enjoyed two great days of motorcycle racing and in the three main races, the winner was only decided at the chequered flag, with winning margins measured in tenths if not hundredths of a second. Unfortunately, you would have also noticed how empty the grandstands were. It’s doubtful there were more than 20,000 people in attendance on the Sunday of the races and that includes the VIPs, sponsors, trackside workers, media members and team personnel. At a circuit as huge as Sepang, that means lots and lots and lots of empty seats.
What is the WSBK championship?
For the uninitiated, the Superbike World Championship (or WSBK) has been running continuously since 1988, so this is their 27th season. Essentially, it’s a series that runs production-based machines you and I can buy, though the Kawasaki ZX-10R Tom Sykes rides on Sundays is quite a bit different. Still, there are some shared components to maintain its road going roots and these days, the bikes run with stickers to mimic headlights. Four cylinder bikes are limited to 1000cc with 1200cc available to those using a V-Twin. Currently, only Ducati run the latter format.
There are two races each weekend and since 1997, they’ve been split by a World Supersport (SSP) championship race. SSP bikes are limited to 600cc if they use four cylinders, but triples can have 675cc and a V-Twin has a 750cc limit. Modifications are very tightly controlled, which ensures a level playing field.
If you need a car analogy, MotoGP is like Formula 1 using pure racing prototypes while WSBK is more akin to GT racing. In theory, it should be the more attractive series to watch because it subscribes to the “race on Sunday, sell on Monday” ethos and the bikes are fairly “affordable” to buy. The series is factory supported by Kawasaki, Ducati, Aprilia, MV Agusta and Suzuki, with Honda fielding a customer team. Yamaha is said to be making a series return in 2016 and BMW may give more support to customer teams running the S 1000 RR.
How’s the racing like?
Let’s put it this way. If you grew tired of watching Marc Marquez lay waste to the entire field in MotoGP last year, then WSBK is the perfect antidote. The 2014 world championship went down to the wire and in 2012, the world championship was decided by half of a point! Sure, Jonathan Rea has turned into a robot this year by winning 60 per cent of the races, but more often than not he has to fight for his wins rather than just disappearing into the distance.
As for World Supersport, with the bikes so evenly matched there are at least half a dozen potential winners each weekend with riders comprising of young up and comers, old veterans and those using it as a step-through series to impress bigger teams in the hope of getting into either WSBK or MotorGP.
What’s not to like?
Actually, there’s very little to complain about. Sure, the marketing machine is not as slick as MotoGP and compared to F1, it feels like a regional series, but the WSBK championship has attracted massive crowds for years and is perhaps the best place to showcase the abilities of a sportbike. Look at it this way, would you prefer to pay RM120,000 for a sportbike with zero WSBK wins or one with multiple championships? They say racing improves the breed so here’s proof of that. Even the tickets to attend WSBK were very reasonably priced so you can’t even complain about the cost of attending. Also, the riders are far more approachable over the racing weekend and paddock passes are easier to purchase.
So why didn’t people attend?
Here’s a simple question. Did you know a round of the WSBK Championship was going to be held on the first weekend of August 2015 in Malaysia? Chances are, you didn’t and you’re not alone. The majority of Malaysians were blissfully unaware of the fact and most probably knew more about the KL City Grand Prix and the chaos it was causing in downtown Kuala Lumpur.
Pre-race publicity from the race organisers was virtually invisible and you couldn’t find posters or billboards shouting about the race, let alone hear radio ads or see booths selling tickets in shopping malls. Most of the publicity seemed to be powered by motorcycle manufacturers competing in WSBK and they were busy organising rides and events for their owners.
On top of that, there is very little national interest in the event. There are no Malaysian riders competing and there are no locally funded teams, unlike Thailand who have a team in Supersports that actually won both South East Asian races in 2015 (Sepang and Buriram in Thailand). The usual bugbear of Sepang being too far away can’t really be used now because as has been shown by MotoGP (which easily gets 100,000 people on Sundays), spectators will come if they’ve been told well in advance about an event and they have a reason to go.
What can be done?
The management at SIC need to do a better job of promoting Malaysia’s WSBK round and they need to do it fast. It doesn’t have to cost millions either. Simple to execute ideas like getting the riders to interact with more local fans by holding events in downtown Kuala Lumpur can be planned months in advance. Having a more attractive atmosphere at the track and turning it into a weekend carnival for bikers can also help. Or they could just make sure they start a sustained promotional effort a few months before the race instead of a few weeks before the riders arrive.
To create more local interest, SIC could work with local teams to offer wildcard spots in World Supersports. The bikes are almost identical to the machines used in the Petronas Asia Road Racing Championship supersports category anyway so competing and doing well is a distinct possibility. Perhaps they could work hand-in-hand with some local sponsors to develop a Malaysian rider to compete in WSBK too, which would be cheaper and potentially more successful than their current efforts in Moto3.
At the end of the day, paying spectators won’t come if they don’t know anything about a sport or they have no emotional attachment to it. WSBK isn’t the same as MotoGP, but I’m convinced with the right amount of promotional work, it could be just as popular while providing better racing too. Otherwise, DORNA (the rights holders for WSBK and MotoGP) may just take away our round and give it to our neighbours in Indonesia, which would be a huge shame.