Racing is a funny thing and I don’t really get it. People get really passionate about their teams, although they’re not really teams – they’re manufacturers. The whole thing is a marketing exercise for large corporations to sell more bikes, but yet people still scramble on board the wagon, choosing Honda over Yamaha, Ducati over BMW.
I’m not even convinced it encourages people to buy bikes. The whole ‘win on Sunday sell on Monday’ mantra seems like a mantra made up by guys in wheelchairs surrounded by hot groupies. Half the time the bikes people are drooling over will never be available for purchase or even test rides, and the heroes they’re emulating will barely be able to walk by the time they hit 50 years old.
Anyway, in this blog I’m going to try to pass on my limited understanding of motorcycle racing. Truth be told I actually saw some superbikes in action the other day at Phillip Island and I’m starting to get into it. Those guys are traveling faster than the human body was ever supposed to, and they are freaking hardcore.
MotoGP.
This is the stuff motorcyclist wet dreams are made of. MotoGP is the AFL, NRL and Big Day Out of motorcycling and if you’re in the business of selling bikes you’ll be paying a lot of zeroes to get marquees and posters slapped around the island.
The riders are paid crazy amounts of money, the successful ones are the size of jockeys and the whole thing is about clinical precision. To be honest every motoGP rider I’ve seen interviewed seems to be lacking a bit of testosterone, but maybe the fact that they’re risking death every time they go to work chills them out a bit.
For some reason the guys that finish on the podium get given a bottle of expensive champagne and, like clockwork, they ‘punk’ each other by shaking it up and spraying it all over each other. You crazy guys, what will you do next? Actually I do know, chances are you’re going to spray champagne over each other again.
Superbikes.
These bikes seem bigger, and maybe they’re heavier? Apparently the riders have to muscle their bikes around the track more and they’re a bit tougher. I detect a touch of bogan from the superbike class.
The bikes are still hotted up to the point where you couldn’t buy them in the shop, but they’re a bit more similar to a road bike than a motoGP bike is.
While the Superbike class isn’t as prestigious as motoGP, it seems to still get some respect. I once asked if the Superbikes could be described as the ‘VFL of motorcycle racing’ and was shut down. It’s much better than that apparently.
Supersport.
I have no freaking idea. If you can watch MotoGP and Superbikes, why the hell would you watch supersport?
This is definitely the VFL of motorcycle racing. The only thing I know about supersport is that the bikes they race are ones you could buy from the shop. Actually I’m not even sure about that.
Is any of this right? Why the hell would anyone watch Supersport racing?
