THE BIG READ
OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
DONINGTON DEEP TIME
If we want to venture as far back as possible into the WorldSBK cosmos then you only need to look down at the ground under your feet . The big bang for WorldSBK racing took place at this very venue , albeit in a whole different millennium . Very soon after that tentative start WorldSBK would become the pre-eminent modified street bike class that it remains to this day , some 35-and-a-half seasons after Donington gave birth to it .
Considering that America was the original birthplace of what was to become WorldSBK racing , and then Italy the country that would nurture it in Europe just before it went fully global in 1988 , the birth of the whole WorldSBK championship was highly international , with interest from several countries and continents .
After a brilliantly eclectic , if sometime shaky , start it was entirely appropriate that an American rider on a Japanese homologation-special , operated by an Italian tuning house with very unusual blackcurrant and black racing colours , would win the first two World Championships . But that ’ s enough about Fred Merkel , Honda ’ s RC30 and Rumi for now .
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