Cycle News

STUART HIGGS VOL. 52 ISSUE 27 JULY 7, 2015 P77 if their races don't clash, do a dual campaign for a year. Just keep growing it. It's early days, but I think the feeling is it's going the right direction. If you have a strong Nation- al Championship, like British Superbike in the UK, you see riders go and advance to the world stage. There's a lot more British riders in MotoGP, Moto 2, World Superbike, but it's somewhat of an irony the fact that in the UK, the British Superbike races bring more people than the World Cham- pionship, even with all the successful British riders in the international series. It's a funny odd thing. The World Superbike Championship is certainly not what the champi- onship was. Its personality has changed, it's changed in many ways. I think the British Super- bike Championship perhaps reflects the personality that the World Superbike Championship had in the days of Carl Fogerty when he was going toe to toe with Scott Russell and John Kocinski. It was open warfare. It was pure hatred. The fans loved it. And then the Laguna World Superbike rounds were the stuff of legends where the Japanese warriors like [Akira] Yanigowa would come and try and take on the homegrown heroes [Ameri- can riders] with these crazy Aussies and wild Italians, like Pierfrancesco Chili. They have great, great events and that's bered what it took to build those events back in the day. We are hugely committed to developing the personalities of the riders. That's what racing has always been built on. You go back to the great rivalries in U.S. racing. You were either a Schwantz fan or a Rainey fan. You were either a Roberts fan or maybe a Steve Baker fan. Each year it has had these rivals where they needed each other to almost define their own status. I think until you re- turn to that, you need to get that spark that gets people wanting to come to the races, to see that rivalry, fallout in place. You do sometimes think peo- ple at the moment are just too goddamn nice to each other. We know we've got social media… Everyone knows so much about everybody now with social media because everyone's tweeting when they're standing up, sitting down, going to buy a bagel, whereas there used to be a bit of mystique about people. I think that was also some- thing that attracted people to the events, just to see the people in the flesh. You saw people really try to get into the faces of people to see what they were really like. That's not there now because everyone is so, almost open. It's a difficult thing. Certain products work at certain times. I think MotoGP obviously has got a massive thing… [Valentino] Rossi defines that championship and many people have said, what happens when Rossi packs up? There's certainly not going to be another Rossi, but they'll be a set of a different characters. But will they be the same as him? Will they be different? Almost certainly. It's a complex thing. Some- times there is a bit of luck involved as well. But if you work hard at it—which these guys are and certainly we [BSB] do—I think you get the end result. CN "CERTAIN PRODUCTS WORK AT CERTAIN TIMES. I THINK MOTOGP OBVIOUSLY HAS GOT A MASSIVE THING… [VALENTINO] ROSSI DEFINES THAT CHAMPIONSHIP AND MANY PEOPLE HAVE SAID, WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ROSSI PACKS UP?" been lost for whatever reason. That just sometimes happens in all sports. You have these periods where you're a bit bereft of personality and I think the World Superbike Championship is perhaps suffering from that at the moment. We have remem-

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