Having asked you to vote for the MotoGP and British Superbike personality you think deserved to be crowned as your top rider of 2008, it is the turn for Crash.net to countdown the World Superbike top ten, as voted for by you!

Of the three polls, this is arguably the most hotly contested, not least because we gave you a total of 25 riders to rate out of ten.

Having totted up their average scores from almost 25,000 votes, we will be revealing your World Superbike order over the next ten days, with the winner being announced on Saturday 20th December.

WSBK Rider of the Year – First place:

Name: Troy Bayliss
Nationality: Australian
Team: Ducati Xerox
Bike: Ducati 1098 F08
Wins: 11
Podiums: 19
Championship points: 460
Championship position: 1st

How do you end a glittering career on a high? How about a third World Superbike title, 11 wins, 19 podiums in 28 races and a double win on your final outing?

Troy Bayliss could not have ended it in a more convincing way...

For too many revered sportsmen, retirements come as a career enters its twilight stages, where success in more fleeting and the motivation has slowly ebbed away.

For Bayliss, though, he had decided long before the season that 2008 would be his final hurrah, citing the decision as a chance to go out as one of the best riders of all time, while he still loved it and while he was still a title contender.

It was a shrewd move because while 2008 will be considered Bayliss' final season, it is his dominance that will ultimately provide the legacy for years to come.

Desperate to regain some composure after an injury interrupted 2007 season, Bayliss could not have started the season more convincingly, winning the first race of the year at Qatar after coolly picking off Max Biaggi on the final lap of the race.

If that race was close, though, the fight for the title certainly wasn't. Two more wins followed at the ensuing Phillip Island round, before Bayliss completed his second double at Assen. Together with a fourth place and two seconds from the first eight races of the year, Bayliss was already building up an insurmountable lead.