Time for a change at the BSB and have Ducati got the wrong man?
Leon Haslam loses out, Shakey triumphs again, but has the winner-takes-all format now reached its sell-by date?
THE SHOWDOWN RULES in British Superbike have generally been brilliant for the series, but they didn’t quite work out this year. Leon Haslam’s crash in the first Showdown round at Donington put him on the back foot as there’s so much emphasis on points in those final three rounds that one mistake means the end of a whole championship challenge. It’s amazing what Shakey Byrne has achieved, winning five BSB titles, and fair play to him but I felt really bad for Haslam. He’s been away on the world scene for so many years and it would have been nice to see him finally winning a major title. But it wasn’t to be. The Showdown format was brought in after Leon Camier totally dominated the 2009 championship, but that was in exceptional circumstances: he had a full factory Wsb-spec Yamaha and factory tyres while some of his rivals were running their bikes on about £20,000 a year. With the way the rules are now in BSB, the racing is so much tighter anyway so perhaps we don’t need the Showdown format. It puts a hell of a lot of pressure on the riders but, as a spectacle for the fans, it’s worked over the years and set up some amazing final-round battles. This year it just didn’t work. If his crash at Donington didn’t ruin Haslam’s title chances then his handlebar snapping off at Brands Hatch certainly did. That sort of thing really shouldn’t be happening at this level of racing. A £50 handlebar caused about £50,000 worth of damage to the bike but it also ruined Haslam’s championship. It was most likely a manufacturing fault. But when was the last time you heard of that happening? It just doesn’t, so there’s some questions that need to be asked there. Also, the final round of BSB is held too late in the season. The damp and cold and changing conditions really affected the whole meeting so we need to have it earlier to have a chance of better weather. I mean – what on earth are we doing going racing in Britain halfway through October?