As we reach the end of the season and championships are being settled, it is interesting to speculate what next year will bring. After all, we have just seen the biggest upheaval in world championship racing with a private investment company, dedicated to making money, outsmarting both the governing body, the FIM, and the most powerful manufacturer, Honda.

Setting aside the fact that the clever chaps at Bridgepoint now control, some might say monopolise, both world championships what does the future look like and does what has happened have any impact on the British Superbike Championship, by far the best of the national championships, which has shown some desire to become more international.

MotoGP has had a turbulent year with boss Carmelo Ezpeleta, realising perhaps too late, that radical change is needed with a return to full grids and exciting racing. You see, unlike F1, which this year has become marginally more interesting by accident, bike racing fans demand to see their heroes fighting to win - and winning by being the best rider not by some geezer tapping keys in a remote location on a lap top.

Unfortunately, the forces of conservatism led by Honda still believe that technical advancement is more important than entertainment. Now that the power playing field has been levelled, they may be forced to see sense although oddly their enthusiasm for World Superbikes see to be on the rise. They could, of course, throw their toys out of the pram and pack it all in which they have done before. More likely, it is all a big willy contest. MotoGP has been as dull as ditch water but it still gets audiences two or three times bigger than anything else and so for Honda, and the other brands, that is important. Sadly, even with the changes, it looks no more exciting next year than this. No Stoner. Everything hangs on Rossi ....?

World Superbikes has been sensational, a championship decided by half a point - even without a showdown! The cost of being truly competitive is fractions compared with MotoGP and, because of that, it attracts more manufacturer and dealer support. It is, in many ways, amateurish compared with the premier class but it is friendly, it is fun, it goes out of its way to connect riders to fans and it has its own following. It is a pity that the Flammini brothers have been turfed out but the moment you sell your business (to Infront two years ago) you take the money and face the inevitable consequences.

Ezpeleta, now the grande capo, is a smart man. Nothing much will change at WSB and neither should it - for the time being at least.

This leaves the British Superbike Championship. This is also heading to an exciting climax although it will be hard to match the Tommy Hill/John Hopkins battle of Brands. The showdown has its detractors but while you can never guarantee a blanket finish this method narrows the odds.

A constant injection of new talent is required in all championships, home-grown if possible but, if not, bought in. Alex Lowes is clearly the coming man but other than Tommy Bridewell we look a bit thin on the ground. Stuart Higgs and Suzuki's Jack Valentine pulled a rabbit out of the hat with John Hopkins in 2011 but Nori Haga hasn't quite cut the mustard this year. One or two top imports are required and, so far, Jakub Smrz hasn't pulled up many trees. But there are more bums than seats so watch this space.

It has been said the the crop of British/Irish riders in WSB has been the best we have produced for years - perhaps we are a great breeding ground for Superbike riders - but rather like Italy we seem to be a bit thin on the ground for the stars of tomorrow. Our hopes rest on youngsters like Kyle Ryde, Bradley Ray and Luke Hedger.

The international ambitions of Messrs Palmer and Higgs seem to remain with Assen for the time being. Certainly the new MotoGP/WSB combination will not want any more BSB tanks parked on their lawn. But growing the series within the confines of the UK will be a challenge.

One of the biggest challenges facing the European based events is the viability of a number of circuits. With some of the regions in Spain, Italy and Portugal running out of cash there is a real threat that all of next year's events pencilled in can be held. Portimao is on the WSB schedule but must be highly doubtful and other tracks which rely on local authority support like Valencia or Jerez have question marks against them. Even a circuit like Nurburgring is under pressure and in the UK it is well known that Silverstone, desperately looking for an investor, would probably like to get out of loss making meetings like WSB.

What is certain is that we nutters will still want to go to see the most exciting motor sport of all (I visited the British Touring Car championships at Silverstone last week. Yawn!) ; we are not going to run out of circuits, just yet; and change equals opportunity. Roll on 2013.

NOBBY GOES TO VEGAS

On November 16 a onetime racing mechanic will take a plane from New York and five hours later land in Las Vegas. After sixty years spent criss-crossing the world for top racing teams it will not be his longest journey but next to his first, from Johannesburg to London, it is one he is going to enjoy.

Derek Rollo "Nobby" Clark is going to America's capital of sin to be inducted into the American Motorcycle Association Hall of Fame, joining such luminaries as Kenny Roberts and Dick Mann. It will be a particularly sweet moment because it will also be the time of a massive climbdown by the governing body.

Six months ago Nobby was on the list of inductees, which also included Jarno Saarinen, but his nomination was rescinded because it was alleged that he had a criminal record. It followed a brief period of working for and a rapid but inevitable falling out with New York classic bike dealer and lawyer Rob Iannucci, sometime owner of Honda 6s and MV3s, who had accused him of theft. In the event that accusation was thrown out and a somewhere lesser charge of disorderly conduct accepted by the court!

Uproar ensued with resignations from Roberts, Mann and others. The AMA backed down, the committee which made the decision was sidelined, it went to a vote of all living members and Nobby was back in.

And on November 16, the teenager who boarded a plane to join his schoolboy friend Gary Hocking and subsequently worked for MV, Honda, Yamaha, among others; Hailwood, Agostini, Roberts, among others; will be recognised and rewarded.

No one in road racing history has had such a lengthy and distinguished career. A battle with cancer seems to have been won, an eye operation for cataracts has made his vision 20/20 - "I'd almost forgotten how good girls looked!", and this septuagenarian, now living in Upper New York state, is back at work fixing engines.

Congratulations Mr Clark.

PRODUCT, PRESENTATION, PERCEPTION.

Comment has been made in this column how, for as long as most can remember, motor cycle racing has struggled to get the recognition it deserves. Has it always been like this? Surely Geoff Duke was mentioned in the same breath as Stirling Moss; Barry Sheene was the biggest motor sport star in the country; and Valentino Rossi is, or certainly was, one of the highest paid sportsmen in the world.

But don't you still get the feeling that motor bike racing is still seen as a kind of working class sport. (Nothing wrong with that you rightly observe.) And that many of the people with money, you know , company bosses, marketing directors et al, regard motorcyclists as being one step removed from hells angels.

But perhaps we should do more to help ourselves? This revolutionary thought occurred while watching the Eurosport presentation of the WSB final from Magny Cours which, while magnificent racing, probably attracted a UK audience of not much more than 100,000. Sport in general is quite poor when it comes to marketing, having not quite woken up to the fact that it needs audiences, and not some form of divine intervention, to survive. Motor cycle racing is among the worst and the news that Infront, the former owners of World Superbikes, is now to be the marketing agency for MotoGP as well means it can only get more worser!

But it was the Eurosport studio presenters which struck me. I am not much in favour of dress codes but you can't help wondering why other sports on other channels seem to insist on their presenters looking, what you might call, respectable, ie suits, ties or at least smart casual. Presumably tv producers put quite a lot of thought into this and therefore one can only assume that Eurosport concludes that the, er, mixed appearance of it's presenters is right for its audience as opposed to golf, rugby, boxing or, come to that, anything else!