Sport: Superbike World Championship in Buriram-THA

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Sport: Superbike World Championship in Buriram-THA
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Sport: Superbike World Championship in Buriram / THA

Sport: Superbike World Championship in Buriram / THA
Destination Asia

The Superbike World Championship premiere in Thailand was a complete success. On a state-of-the-art race track, local hero Ratthapark Wilairot also won in front of full grandstands.

Imre Paulovits

04/01/2015

Thailand! Thailand! – The calls from the packed grandstand of the brand new Chang International Circuit in Buriram, Thailand just wouldn’t stop. On the podium stood a man who for many years has enriched various World Cup classes with a nice splash of color, but who has never been close to a World Cup victory.

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Rhattapark Wilairot actually wanted to compete in the Moto2 World Championship again this year, but since his home country had a Superbike World Championship run and the newly founded team from Core Motorsport Thailand wanted to work with him, he had the first two Supersport World Championship Runs included in his program. Now he has won in front of his home crowd and he is the World Cup leader. The Moto2 World Championship has to do without him, he will fight for the Supersport World Championship.

A concentrated load of Siamese strength

But Ratthapark Wilairot wasn’t the only one who completely freaked out his compatriots on this first Superbike World Championship weekend in Thailand. His brother Ratthapong, who is five years his junior, started with a wildcard for the first time in a World Championship run and immediately finished fifth. And the two races for the Asia Talent Cup, which started this year not as part of the MotoGP World Championship, but at the Superbike World Championship on the new track, were won by the Thai youngsters Somkiat Chantra and Nakarin Atiratphuvapat. Newin Chidchop, to whom this new racetrack designed by the German architect Hermann Tilke is primarily to thank, stood on the podium every time and proudly had his right hand over his heart.

Even if this concentrated load of Siamese strength came in this form suddenly and unexpectedly, it is only the logical consequence of a process that began creeping up almost ten years ago, but which has since picked up speed unstoppably and which will probably be the face of all motorcycle racing in the future will determine. While the markets in Europe have shrunk, a real boom has emerged in Southeast Asia. Small two-wheelers, initially barely 100 cubic centimeters in size, have provided mobility in this booming region for decades. Large scooters and small motorcycles still make up the largest part of private transport, but there are more and more large bikes.

Superbike / Supersport World Championship on worldsbk.com

Valentino Rossi and Co. also have a fan base there

How did we get infected with the motorcycle virus ourselves? Mostly on the mopeds of our youth. With the improvement of the income situation in the countries where almost everyone had to do with a small two-wheeler, the dream of big motorcycles was inevitable. Just like the dream of emulating the idols of the racetrack.

Mike Hailwood, Phil Read and Barry Sheene were the result of the motorcycle tradition in England that lasted from the pre-war years to the 1960s. Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson and Wayne Rainey began in a scene that arose in the years when the motorcycle mutated from a means of transport to a recreational device in the USA – a good ten years before anyone in Europe even thought of that thought something. And the Spanish dominance of Jorge Lorenzo and Marc Márquez is the result of the last motorcycle boom on the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish love for motorsport. You don’t need to be a prophet to foresee where the two-wheeled stars will come from in the near future. In Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, it’s not just the motorcycle markets that are currently growing. Valentino Rossi and Co. also have a fan base there that is bigger than anywhere else on this planet. It is not surprising that the boys there are enthusiastically emulating their idols.

The future of motorsport is exotic and exciting

But MotoGP back and forth, without a courageous visionary hardly anyone would know where the city of Buriram in Thailand is today. And above all, the city would not have a brand new race track of World Cup format. A few years ago Newin Chidchop came up with the idea of ​​giving the city’s football club a boost with the help of some influential and knowledgeable sports managers from England. Then he built a gigantic stadium, dubbed Thunder Castle, and the whole thing was properly marketed. Today Buriram United is multiple Thai champions, is involved in the Asian Champions League and the hype about this team in Thailand is bigger than the best football clubs in Europe can dream of. The club has fan shops all over the country, and Chidchop’s investment in sport has already paid off many times over.

With this very business model, he has now built a state-of-the-art race track in an area where rice fields and water buffalo characterize the landscape. His experience in football has caused some weird developments by European standards. For example, the fan shop between the stadium and the racetrack, where not only football stars’ jerseys are offered, but also fan articles from two-wheeler and four-wheeler sports – a daring combination.

But the event village of the Thai motorcycle industry right next to it, in which one party after the other ran over the entire weekend and where everything was presented that is coveted and expensive here shows how right the courageous businessman was with his idea. In front of this open door to the motorcycle trade, there were still thousands of small machines standing around the big ones in the parking lot, but the exclusive motorbikes that were parked in the motorcycle parking lot in the main grandstand even exceeded the two-wheeled parking lots for the GP races in Assen or Mugello comes together.

To top sport with these bolides. The British still dominate the Superbike World Championship, as they did on Phillip Island. Jonathan Rea was the superior man before Leon Haslam. But the premiere in the country of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, whose picture could also be seen everywhere along the track, showed us something of the future of motorsport. And it’s exotic and exciting.

Interview with Javier Alonso


Sport: Superbike World Championship in Buriram-THA


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Dorna Vice President Javier Alonso.

“A Grand Prix in Thailand is possible”

Dorna Vice President Javier Alonso spoke to MOTORRAD about the reasons for expanding the Superbike World Championship to Asia and his experiences with the Thai organizer.

Javier, as the senior manager of the sports marketing company Dorna, you are practically the boss of the Superbike World Championship and you have played a key role in ensuring that this championship is now also held in Thailand. What made you do it?
When we took over the Superbike World Championship, it was very much focused on Europe. The markets there are declining, while they are growing in Southeast Asia. We placed a Superbike World Championship round in Malaysia last year because we knew the country from the MotoGP World Championship. Then the Chang International Circuit came up to us and we started negotiating with management. Because they still have little experience with motorcycling, we decided together to start with the Superbike World Championship, which is based on high-volume machines, because it is also easier for motorcyclists to understand the bikes that they ride on the road themselves. It is incredible how many motorcycles are sold in Thailand. A Ducati store opened in Buriram during the race weekend, the size of which is really impressive. The city where Ducati sells the most motorcycles in the world is in Asia – it’s Bangkok.
How did you find the World Cup run in Thailand – from your point of view?
We met with a lot of enthusiasm from the organizer. We had to work with a large number of people, and each of them really did their best. We then saw the same enthusiasm among the spectators, and we can also be satisfied with the number of spectators. The fact that Ratthapark Wilairot won the Supersport World Championship race was also the best thing that could have happened to us in this regard. Thai drivers also won the two races for the Asia Talent Cup, which will give this event a lot of boost for the future. We need good drivers in our world championship series, and the driver pyramid has also shrunk in the classic markets in recent years. Integrating a country with 70 million inhabitants into international motorsport also helps us to enlarge this pyramid again.
Could you imagine a Grand Prix at the Chang International Circuit?
We initially have a three-year contract with the organizer. Based on our experience so far, I am sure that we will extend this contract even further, and then not only for the Superbike World Championship, but also to bring the MotoGP World Championship to the Chang International Circuit. I think starting the Superbike World Championship in a new country and then bringing the MotoGP World Championship there is a good model for us.

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