CONVERSELY, THE PRICE of attending a Bennetts British Superbike round is a bargain by the standards of rip-off Britain these days: just £21 for an online raceday ticket (£27 if you do it the ancient cash-in-hand way). For that you half a dozen classes and races, including the new KTM 990 SuperDuke contest (at ten of the 13 rounds) on unfaired, wide-‘bar V-twins – around 250 bikes in total. And some of the rounds take place on Britain’s olde-worlde tracks where the run-off areas may not match
MotoGP standards, but the crowds can get really close-up to the brutal power and speed of 200-horsepower motorcycles.
While we’re rapping about prices, the KTM series also looks like a good deal for those who feel the lust to get on track and hobble into work on crutches on Monday morning. For £7,800 you get the race-kitted KTM SuperDuke, which will gives125bhp at the rear wheel and a max of 150mph – surely enough for average mortals. The total cost of competing for a year, including the purchase of the bike, should be between £15,000-£18,000, according to KTM’s race coordinator Iain Hutton. For that you even get the chance to show off in front of family and friends with
Valentino Rossi - well, at the same
event as Valentino - at the British MotoGP at
Donington Park.
IF THE NEW tyre restrictions in MotoGP seem severe - a rider can use only 17 rears in practice and qualifying - this year’s regulations in BSB look positively Stalinist. A rider is restricted to just six rear covers for the whole of the three 50-minute practice sessions, and only three qualifiers during the qualifying period.
But the cost-cutting measure is being widely praised. Dunlop technician Phil Plater says that in the past a top team could rip through up to 40 rears in a weekend. A private team might get through between 12 and 15 at £140 each - between £1,700 and £2,100 per weekend just on rear rubber.
