Rennie Scaysbrook | November 25, 2016
Would you pay to see bikes like these go at it? We sure would!
In a move that could rekindle the legendary races of Eddie Lawson, Wes Coley and Freddie Spencer on high-bar, no fairing sportbikes, Dorna has officially said the World Supersport Championship’s days are numbered, with nakedbikes set to replace them.
The revelations came from Xavier Alonso, World Superbike Executive Director for WorldSBK owners Dorna, in a revealing story penned by renowned MotoGP journalist and author Mat Oxley, and published in the latest issue of British publication MCN Sport that went on sale November 23.
“I can’t say when but we will have a class with nakedbikes instead of World Supersport. It could be the future,” Alonso told Oxley. “It will start as a direct replacement for Supersport and then we’ll see how it goes.”
American PJ Jacobsen in the thick of the Supersport action at Qatar. This could soon be a thing of the past.
With 600cc supersport sales not even a fraction of what they once were, Alonso believes the move to a nakedbike format reflects a growing trend within the international motorcycle market with more and more riders purchasing nakedbikes with superbike levels of power but more comfortable ergonomics. However, Alonso stopped short of mentioning what capacity the new nakedbike class would be, although we’d hope the class catered for large capacity bikes like the KTM 1290 Super Duke R and BMW S 1000 R.
Racing nakedbikes is not a new thing. Many countries have enjoyed long and successful championships for the one-piece handlebar bikes, including Australia with the Australian Nakedbike Championship and Japan with the legendary NK1 series, and some within the WorldSBK paddock have been pushing for a nakedbike championship for many years.
Back in the day: Wes Cooley giving it to the naked Yoshimura Suzuki.
But Alonso is open to almost any discussion about the future of production motorcycle racing.
“One thing we (Dorna) say to the manufacturers is, ‘let us know what you want to do because World Superbike can be whatever you want to sell,’” said Alonso. “We (Dorna) are here to run racing but we are also here to help manufacturers sell their products, so if they want to do naked, Underbone (Honda Cub-style scooter racing that’s enormous in Thailand/Malaysia and the series where Moto2 star Hafizh Syahrin started his racing career in), or even a big scooter class, we are ready to talk with them. Anything is possible.
“If we don’t work to help the development of racing, then in 20 years racing will be finished.”
At Cycle News, we’re fully versed in the benefits of nakedbike racing, having raced our Project KTM 1290 Super Duke R at Pikes Peak this year and know just how much fun these things are to race hard.
We loved racing our KTM 1290 Super Duke R nakedbike this year.
What do you guys think? Would you like to see Kawasaki’s Z1000, Aprilia’s 1100 Tuono, Yamaha’s FZ-10 and Suzuki’s GSX-S1000 go at it, just like Spencer and Lawson did all those years ago? We certainly would!
Source: MCN Sport
