The Superbike World Championship holds a special place in the Australian motorcycle racing lexicon, and the seeds were sown even before the series made its debut at Oran Park in 1988 – when mighty Mick Doohan was at his towering, peerless four-stroke best in one of his last local appearances before switching to 500GP racing.
Even though the Australian Road Racing Championship was still being held in the early 1980s, hosting the traditional two-stroke GP classes, it was already in terminal decline as superbike racing had become the de-facto national title with riders such as Malcolm Campbell, Rob Phillis, Andrew Johnson, Mick Cole, the late Iain Pero, Paul Feeney and Scott Stephens doing some amazing things on the skinny-tyred, big-bore and (sometimes) ill-handling brutes. Superbike racing was not only a media darling, but riders, teams and spectators couldn’t get enough either – with tracks such as Winton and Oran Park the major epicentres.
American superbike pioneer Steve McLaughlin was well aware of this local adoration and, as one of the driving forces behind the inauguration of the WorldSBK title, it was a no-brainer that Australia would be one of the countries to get start-up hosting rights.
The Oran Park round in 1988 was the first time a road racing world championship event was held in Australia, and 18,000 spectators lined the circuit to soak it up
