Larry Lawrence | July 5, 2017
World Superbike, or the Superbike World Championship as they now call it, has been coming to America for 28 years. As the series heads back to Laguna Seca this coming weekend for the 15th time, we thought it would be a good time to look back at the history of the championship in America.
As hard as it is to believe, America has hosted 44 World Superbike races dating back to the inaugural race at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota in 1989. Three tracks have hosted the championship – Brainerd, Mazda Laguna Seca and Miller Motorsports Park (now Utah Motorsports Complex). American riders won 12 of those races. Americans won quite a few in the early and middle years of the series, but it’s been eight years since Ben Spies carried the Stars and Stripes around Laguna Seca, after winning both legs in 2009.
That likely won’t change this year, unless Jake Gagne somehow pulls off a minor miracle.
World Superbike launched in 1988, with American Fred Merkel becoming the first champion of the series. While Americans enjoyed that first season on TV, they would have to wait until 1989 to check it out in person when the series came to the Land of 10,000 Lakes and Brainerd International Raceway in June of that year. It was round four of the 11-event championship and a head-turning crowd of better than 30,000 fans came through the gates – probably twice the number any AMA Superbike race had ever attracted to BIR.
The rider who will go down in history as the first to win a World Superbike race in America is Frenchman Raymond Roche. In fact, Roche swept the weekend in Brainerd on his Squadra Corse Lucchinelli Ducati 851. Merkel made it to the podium, in third on his Rumi RCM Honda RC30 in Race 2 at BIR that year and went on to win he second World Superbike Championship.
Unfortunately, the showdown between the AMA and World Superbike riders didn’t come that first year, with the rules of the two series just off enough to keep many AMA riders from participating.
In 1990 Doug Chandler broke through to win the second leg of the WSBK event in front of 41,000 at Brainerd on a Kawasaki, becoming the first American to win a World Superbike race on home soil.
Chandler and his fellow Americans proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Superbike racing in the United States is world class. Chandler made American pride swell when he won the pole by qualifying at a record 1:42.158 (105.719 mph) on his Muzzy Kawasaki ZX-7 Superbike. U.S riders dominated qualifying with seven of the top ten riders being from the U.S. Those riders included series regular Fred Merkel (2nd) and then AMA riders Scott Russell (4th), David Sadowski (5th), Jamie James (6th), Thomas Stevens (8th), and Randy Renfrow (10th).
In 1991 Doug Polen swept the Brainerd WSBK weekend with a double victory on his Fast by Ferracci Ducati 888. The Texan would go on to win the World Superbike Championship year. AMA regular Scott Russell finished second in both legs.
In spite of the big crowds that showed up to Brainerd each year, the original plan was to have a two-race North American swing with the promoters splitting the costs of bringing over the series. The boycott of the Mosport round in ’91 by most series regulars meant a Canadian round was off the table, so Brainerd lost its race as well.
It would be four years before the series, as it became well established, would travel back to America. It was with great fanfare that World Superbike came to Laguna in 1995. The series was rising so quickly in popularity it was beginning to challenge GP racing. Some massive crowds showed up to watch the Superbikes on the Monterey Peninsula in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, when the championship hit its absolute peak with AMA riders regularly competing in a showdown of what then was the two most popular Superbike Championships in the world.
Bad boy Anthony Gobert took the victory in leg 1 of the renewal of the American round in 1995. In leg 2 it was Troy Corser, making it an all-Aussie affair. The AMA regulars did well. Miguel Duhamel, on his way to winning the AMA Superbike title that year, finished on the podium (third) in the first leg. His Honda teammate Mike Hale did the same in race 2.
In 1996 John Kocinski put America back on top, by winning Race 1. Kocinski would come back and sweep both legs in 1997 en route to winning that year’s championship. The AMA was well represented in ’97 with Duhamel finishing on the podium twice. In ’98 it was Troy Corser and Nori Haga splitting the wins and again AMA riders Doug Chandler and Ben Bostrom earned podium finishes.
It was finally time to shine for AMA Superbike riders in 1999. That year AMA riders Anthony Gobert and Ben Bostrom split the wins, both riding for Vance & Hines Ducati. In what proved to be the best outing for the AMA heroes.
Ben Bostrom swept the Laguna races in 2001. Then the ever-popular Colin Edwards finally scored a win at the circuit in 2002.
The late ‘90s to early 2000s races proved the absolute zenith of WSBK in America. It was the highly-anticipated showdown between WSBK and AMA riders and fans flooded in to watch. Several things happened that quickly diminished the race’s popularity.
MotoGP began allowing four-strokes and several manufacturers shifted their focus to that series. That also shifted fan attention to the premier road racing series, following a period when the two-stroke GP era had grown stagnant.
Then World Superbike went to spec tires in 2004, meaning it would be difficult, if not impossible for AMA Superbike teams to participate. World Superbike at Laguna rapidly lost momentum and in 2005 MotoGP came back to the circuit, leaving World Superbike high and dry in America.
It was four years before World Superbike would return and this time to Utah. Initially popular, the Utah event, with its remote location, could not sustain the kind of crowds needed to support a world championship event. It was over after five years (2008-2012). Notable during the Utah period was Ben Spies sweeping the races in 2009. It marked the last time an American rider would win his home WSBK event.
In 2015 the series returned to Laguna Seca with Chaz Davies, who had raced several years in the AMA series, sweeping the weekend. Last year it was Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes splitting the wins.
For now, the Superbike World Championship seems stable at Laguna Seca. MotoAmerica rules are aligning more closely, which means wildcard entries might once again be a possibility, but the spec tires in both championships, continue to be problematic for American squads.
Fans can only hope that some arrangement can be made in the future that will once again produce the epic showdown between the World Superbike and MotoAmerica regulars.
