News that Davide Giugliano could be returning to WorldSBK prompts mixed feelings. On the one hand having someone to add a bit of Continental glamour to a British series seemed like a good move but the only thing the handsome, but accident-prone, Roman may have successfully got his leg over did not have two wheels.

And the same applies, well almost, to our adopted Frenchman Sylvain Guintoli. Now he really is a class act, having won a world championship, but the collaboration with Stuart Hicken’s team and the new GSX-R1000 has not yet begun to pay off this season. However, team-mate and young gun Taylor Mackenzie is in the same predicament while the team’s Superstock rider Richard Cooper - who is about 30 years older than he looks - is having a whale of a time.

Neither Giugliano or Guintoli will have come cheap and it is almost certain that promoters MSV have had a hand in getting them here. Assuming that’s the case, we must applaud Messrs Higgs and Palmer for putting their hands in their pockets. But right now they must be wondering if it was money well spent.

The idea is a good one, world class riders in a domestic series but I can only recall it working once when America’s John Hopkins and Tommy Hill staged the most thrilling Superbike finales of all time at Brands Hatch - Hill winning by a tyres width. Who you are inclined to get are stars well past their sell-by date who can’t get a ride in a world championsip.

It would be cruel, and perhaps unfair, to label Giugliano and Guintoli as the above but they were both recovering from serious injuries and probably not best suited to the hurly-burly of British Superbikes.

British road racing, in terms of short circuits, is now dominated by Motorsport Vision which is in the unique position of controlling the circuits (most of them) and the series. To its credit, and it does deserve some credit, MSV has made huge improvements to spectator facilities, negotiate live TV and do run the best championship in the world - second only to MotoGP.

The accusation of the critics, including some of the teams, is that they take too much out and don’t put enough back in. And that they don’t do enough to grow the sport, an accusation which can also be levelled at the governing body, the ACU whose job it is. Why can’t we be like Spain, is the cry?

Apart from the fact that countries like Spain, and Italy, seem to have thousands of kids riding around on scooters in beautiful sunshine, motorcycle racing has a much higher profile with riders like Rossi or Marquez being national heroes. But equally importantly promoters Dorna and the Spanish federation also invest, heavily backed by sponsors like Repsol and Red Bull with the Rookies series.

So it is good news that MSV are collaborating with Dorna to introduce a junior series into the UK next season. There has been a concern that some of our tracks are just too dangerous for kids roaring around at 100mph plus but I am sure they will be chosen with care.

Returning to British Superbikes and the importing of fading stars, it is also true that the series is dominated by riders in their thirties, indeed bordering on or even exceeding the magic 40 when life is supposed to begin. Nothing against the extraordinary feats of sportsmen like Valentino Rossi, Roger Federer and our own Shane Byrne, all of whom could be kindly described as ‘mature’ but they shouldn’t be getting away with it.

Maybe not for much longer. With teens and early twenties riders like Luke Mossey, Jake Dixon and Bradley Ray starting to mount serious challenges that time may have come. And if MSV put its money behind young lads like these we might just have another Barry Sheene on our hands.

All that’s required is a few notes, a bit of stardust and imaginative promotion.