World SBK Blog: GeeBee goes out for Thai

The Superbike Championship made its second visit to Thailand last weekend. The 2015 edition of the event was deemed a huge success at the Buriram Circuit, five hours north of Bangkok. Would the 2016 version be that ‘difficult second album’ or another critically acclaimed masterpiece.

If the racing was anything to go by I would say it scored 6.5 out of 10. Rea and Sykes took a win apiece, continuing Kawasaki’s domination but Michael van der Mark showed flashes of greatness by securing pole position and running at the front for much of Saturday’s race, eventually coming home third to back up his podiums in Australia. Someone in a Honda shirt said on Sunday night: ‘this is great. We can now look forward to coming to races”.

The Kawasaki pairing had a few ‘moments’ as they fought for the lead in both races but were full of praise for each other’s efforts in parc ferme, despite some sections of the media trying to stir up a feud.

For me, after the excitement of Phillip Island, I thought the racing was a little dull. It was nothing to do with the bikes, teams, or riders however. I have long felt that the design of the modern track is not really suited to close, fairing bashing, motorcycle racing. Like the CAAD programme that designed the perfect 130º radius curves, it is all a bit clinical.

The Chang International Circuit is another creation of master track designer Hermann Tilke and the flaw comes through trying to accommodate all forms of motorsport. Every one of these circuits touts the idea that they will be able to host a Formula 1 race, so design a trajectory accordingly. Unless they have $30 million US to put on the table as an opening play, it ain’t going to happen. It would be really nice for a new circuit owner to come along and say ‘We are going to design a track first and foremost for bikes’ – give us a new Phillip Island, Assen, Brno – something organic where curves ebb and flow into each other and a profile that molds it’s way around the topography. Instead we get acres of flat plains with long straights and perfect radius curves. No one likes that – not even car drivers!

The event this time lacked a bit of the polished pazazz of the previous year. I noted some armchair journalists commenting that ‘rent-a-crowd’ had been brought in again to put bums on seats. That wasn’t really the case however. Only Kawasaki and Yamaha brought large contingents of ‘fans’ that I could see, around 200 each, and in reality they were staff from the manufacturer’s Thai production facilities (my own trail bike was made in Thailand). What better way to enthuse people about the sport than show it off to the people who make the product.

The grandstands were fuller than last year with what appeared to be genuine race fans. There was a lot more non-branded clothing around and a lot of people turning up on bikes.

The highlight of the weekend for me, however, was the ‘scooter’ drag racing.

The circuit owner has laid out a drag ribbon on the vast area of asphalt between the football stadium and the race track and every Friday night hoards of kids come and race scooters legitimately, with packed grandstands watching on, instead of using the town’s main street as the strip. There were a smattering of normal scooters but the majority were proper stripped down and fully pimped race machines. Anodised frames and rims, screaming two-stroke engines with no cans, fuel that looked like a bright blue alchopop and smelt like the exhaust vent of a chemical factory really got the hairs on my neck standing up and my ears ringing. Ally this to the fact that the riders turn up in jeans and t-shirt, the latest Onitsuka Tiger trainers were very de rigueur, and a piss pot helmet, made it one of the maddest motorsport events I have seen for a long time. And those little things could properly shift, I mean really shift – the fastest runs were a whisker over 5 secs!