TEST
As the post-Covid return to normality continues to unfold, there are some events we’ve previously highlighted on our wall calendars which sadly won’t be returning to brighten our lives just yet.
One of these should have taken place down under over January’s Australia Day weekend, but didn’t –whether it’s gone into hibernation, or has been definitively cancelled, is unclear. But for sure the absence of the 28th running of the Island Classic staged on the Phillip Island GP Circuit each January left a big hole in the 2023 Aussie two-wheeled calendar, both for those taking part in it, and avid race fans alike from all over Australia, and much further afield, too.
Over the past decade, this festival of more than 50 races staged over the three-day weekend has progressively grown into the most spectacular, yet improbable no-holds nail-biting, tyre-smoking, handlebar-rubbing festival of historic motorcycle sport to be seen anywhere in the world, Northern Hemisphere or South. That’s in part because of the International Challenge heading the race programme each year, pitting teams of riders from Australia, NZ, the UK and USA against each other on what’s best described as Period 5-Plus motorcycles producing upwards of 180bhp transmitted to the Island Tarmac via skinny slick tyres delivering a slimmed-down contact patch. Think Superbike power transmitted through 600 Supersport tyre sizes. P5-Plus essentially came about because the Brits wanted to be able to run the later Yamaha FJ1100 motor introduced in 1984, one year after the official P5 cut-off date in Australia, so to accommodate them this was permitted – but only for the Island Classic.
Ridden by a huge array of brave and illustrious riders including former world champions like Troy Corser, Colin Edwards and Steve Martin, Isle of Man TT deities like John McGuiness and current 135mph-plus lap record holder Peter Hickman, plus the world’s most versatile racer Jeremy McWilliams, who’s won more races in more different classes than anyone else ever, and a plethora of former National Superbike champions like Shawn Giles (AUS), Josh Heyes (USA), Jordan Szoke (CAN), Richard Scott (NZ) and John Reynolds (UK), these air-cooled, twin-shock Vintage Superbikes may look anachronistic parked in the garages, but out on track their performance in the four six-lap races staged each year has been literally astounding.
Lapping in a qualifying time for the World Superbike grid
