LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE!
So we're in the Showdown. This controversial method of ensuring that the British Superbike Championship goes down to the wire - that, at least, is the theory - has become the accepted format for deciding a season-long title race. Six riders have a chance of winning, the rest make up the numbers.
Is it accepted? Is it fair? Is it entertainment? Should the promoters look for something else? Should we go back to where we were, before this bright idea was foisted upon us, as the sceptics might put it?
This sort of methodology is not new. It was adopted by NASCAR in the States where, in a series of some 34 races, they select the top 20 cars to (effectively) start again in a 10 race shoot-out - or something like that. The purpose? They still want 200,000 fans to turn up for the final round. Unlikely if Joe Doakes Jr has already won it five races before.
The playoffs were invented in the football league for a similar reason, to inject some excitement into the end of the season. So, two teams are promoted automatically but the next four have a knockout tournament for the third place. Unfair, cry the purists and they're probably right because a team which has played hard all season to finish third can be knocked out by a team which only managed sixth. But, so what?
Knockout selection is nothing new in motorcycle racing. Old timers (you know those people in pullovers with beards) will remember not only when race meetings lasted one day but there were heats and finals. And if you didn't make the first six in the heat, you weren't in the final no matter how famous you were.
But that was then. This is now. Entertaining the people, spectators or viewers, is the name of the game. And, the promoters contend, this is providing more entertainment, from the qualifying rounds through the final three, than having someone run away with the series, Camier-like, of earlier times.
But is it fair? Providing a definition of fairness will baffle most intellectuals but whatever it is, a better question is - fairness to who, the spectators or the riders? Paddock or punter? It is a fine line but a clear one. In a professional sport it has to be those whose eyeballs pay the bills.
Has it worked? There are those who say that it hasn't made any difference and therefore it has caused more trouble than is it worth.
Statistics might prove this, one way or another, but the only answer is that you never know until you try something. What is for sure is that in any form of business, and that includes sport, innovation is essential. Anything which stands still is going backwards, particularly alongside other competing forces which are going forwards.
The question now for the promoters MSV is how to keep the BSB Championship moving forwards? How to freshen it up? The presence of James Westmoreland and the Buildbase team in the 'playoffs' and the performance of youngster Alex Lowes has been great. But will Lowes be here next season or the Paul Bird team?
It has been a winning series. Now is the time for more radical thinking, not just in format but presentation, Eurosport take note.
EAT OUR WORDS!
This column has had plenty to say about Silverstone in the past, not all of it complimentary. In fact, very little. It is too big and flat for spectators; a shorter circuit configuration should be used simply because the bikes don't come round often enough; and access to MotoGP was very expensive.
But compliments where they are due. The large crowd, attracted by the star quality of Marquez and the hope of Crutchlow, was well handled. The grotesque Wing, built for F1, was abandoned in favour of the old pits complex and the sun shone.
Spectators went home happy having seen a sensational finish to Moto GP and a new home grown hero emerge in the lanky shape of 20 year old Scott Redding, surely this year's Moto2 champion.
Behind the scenes, MotoGP owners Dorna were persuading BT, the new broadcasters of the series, to spend more money on presentation. And wannabe presenters like the BBCs Matt Roberts and Steve Parrish; Eurosport's Julian Ryder and Neil Hodgson; and SKY's Keith Huewen were jockeying for positions.
Even further behind the scenes, a private investor company Lloyds Development Capital was negotiatingto buy Silverstone Circuits Ltd. the events arm of owners the British Racing Drivers Club which, in turn, had just sold the entire 850 acre estate to a property company. Get it.
Oh, and there was some racing.
1066 AND ALL THAT
Quite a long time ago the French invaded England, King Harold was killed by an arrow in the eye and we were taken over. Cynics might say the same sort of thing is happening now but by the rest of the Continent. After spending a large number of years trying to convert the locals to speak French and, according to my friend Mick Chatterton who knows about these things, quite a lot of success, they gave up and returned home.
But we have been left with quite a lot of French in our vocabulary and keep taking on terms and phrases, some attractive, some irritating and some amusing. One such is "parc ferme" which seems to have wormed its way into the motorcycle racing lexicon, presumably to tell riders where to park their bits of iron after the race. What did we call it before?
Does it matter? Not a lot but when used at classic meetings it is somewhat incongruous. And, I have to admit, mildly irritating.
