Were there national 500CC Championships?

[ghinzani]

For instance in the UK I know they used to have 250, and still have 125 Championships, but did they have a national 500cc Championship when it was the premier class at World level in the 70s and 80s? If not what was the premier national class before Superbikes took over the mantle?

I just wondered how much old GP material filtered down? I guess at 250 level a bit did, and as such would give the rider who could afford the equipemnt a distinct advantage no?

[jhansen]

The United States still has 125 and 250 championships. I don't know if we had a national 500 championship, but I believe those bikes were elligible in the old Formula 1 class (I think). This is all what I've heard or been told, but I think Roberts would bring his gp bike over to run some of the races. Could be wrong though.

[ghinzani]

So they ran the 500 GP bikes against the 750 equivalent to Superbikes?

[gomick]

The UK & Japan had 500cc championships - only know this cause Wayne Gardner won in 84 in the UK & Daryl Beattie & Norick Abe won in Japan in the early 90's.... The Jap champonship where GP bikes, not sure about the British - Chunder would know...

[ghinzani]

Looks like there was a 500cc Championship up till the end of 86 and then it becomes Super one with 750s and 1100 in there too. I wonder how closely these 500s foloowed the GP spec?
http://www.superbike-racing.co.uk/Vi...StatsIndex.htm

[racer69]

Australia had a national 500cc championship, but it generally featured a few 500cc bikes with the grids filled with smaller capacity machinery

Originally Posted by ghinzani

So they ran the 500 GP bikes against the 750 equivalent to Superbikes?

Formula 1 rules permitted as you say above. The F1 rules were only replaced in 2005, the odd GP bike was still running at the Isle of Man until then


The Swann Series in Australia in the early-mid 80s permitted entries from 500cc GP bikes, Superbikes & Formula 1 bikes.

The 1985 series for instance featured works 500cc bikes for Gardner (Rothmans Honda) & Rob McElnea (Skoal Bandit Suzuki), older 500cc bikes (Honda Australia Entry for Mal Campbell), Formula 1 bikes for Yamaha Australia riders (Dowson & Magee) and Superbikes for the likes of Rob Phillis.

[Dani Filth]

saw a couple of Swann series races videos . was nice to see the different spec bikes racing together

[chunder]

THhe only real 500cc national championship was run in the UK in the 70's and later on the All Japan series ran for a few years beiung won by Abe, Fujiwara and the like.

It was basically a grooming ground for future 500 riders. Beattie had a couple of years, Abe started there and also the likes of Magee, Goddard and Itoh. It was pretty hard work as Honda in particular valued it and forced Beattie to stay on an extra year in 92 after he won it in 91.

The other important series was the Ducados Open in Spain in the 90's. This series paid out huge money and was for 125 and 250 machines and WSS600. Obviously all the big Spanish teams were involved and the likes of Raudies, Oettl, Roberts Jr, Gibernau, D'Antin really earned their corn there aswell as competing in GP. It was huge with guys like Martinez, Criville Garriga and Pons renewing GP rivalry in local events and was on live TV.

The bikes were not GP spec and had to be production models, so no A kits, B kits etc and no NSR bikes, was all TZ, RS etc, helped to make it more even.

Was hugey succesful and pretty much launched any Spanish riders career. A lot of Brits raced there like Robinson, Mawdsley, Borley, Bosworth as the money was worth it for even top tens after travel money was taken away.

500 wise, there was a European championship but this never really attracted big teams, was pretty much for old 500's.

And the British series was a sort of Open series so in theory you could run anything but the easy route to winning was an RG500, NS500 etc and Rothmans Honda, Skoal Suzuki and Heron put in teams. This was how it was before Superbikes took over late 80's. It was how Gardner switched to 500 and the Likes of Sheene, Haslam, Marshall, Burnett all ride here often alongside a GP career for their manufacturer.

The only places really that you could run a 500 other than this was events like the Superprestigio that was an invitiation only thing at Sugo that was big money and attracted guys liek Gardner. Rainey on factory bikes. The odd Daytona race, the TT and one off stuff liek Macau?

Also the early Transatlantic races in the UK were open to 500 machines before switching to Superbikes.

[djb]

neat, thks chun