Is South Australia really going to become Australia’s new Motorcycle Mecca after Phillip Island?

It looks like it’s trying hard with MotoGP getting a two-year sponsorship deal, securing the FIM Speedway Grand Prix finale, plus national Classic Speedway and Historic Roadracing championships, all to be run there in 2027. Then comes WorldSBK in 2028. What’s going on?

As Phillip Island hosts a round of the MotoGP World Championship for the last time, South Australia is continuing the push to try and make it become Australia’s mecca of motorcycle racing. As well as securing a naming sponsor for the next two years, state government assistance has helped local and national sports administrators secure important championships to raise both the profile of SA and cross-pollinate the tribal nature of Australian motorcycle fans.

The inaugural national Classic Speedway titles will be held in SA next year along with the 2027 national Historic Roadracing championships. Dates haven’t been set for either but it would be logical to hold them around the time of the first Adelaide MotoGP, which runs from 12-14 November.

This comes after the announcement in September that SA’s Gilman track will host the final two rounds of the FIM Speedway Grand Prix (SGP) series in a massive double-header on October 29-30. This means SGP returns to Australia for the first time in 10 years and will be the first time a world champion is crowned Down Under since Aussie legend Jason Doyle won the 2017 FIM Speedway GP of Australia in Melbourne to clinch Speedway’s biggest prize.

Meanwhile, this weekend Shell V-Power Motorsport Park at The Bend is hosting the finals of the Spring Nationals drag racing, which includes Top Fuel motorcycles. It is the first time in 20 years that SA has hosted such a major drag racing event (at Adelaide International Raceway). The Bend’s new dragway has already set several world records in both two and four-wheel classes and there are plans to bring major American teams over in the future.

Obviously the movers and shakers in SA are spreading the interest across all motorcycle disciplines to raise the profile of the sport outside the MotoGP round.

For example, Speedway is so ingrained into Aussie culture that every time AMCN runs a report either in print or online we get a huge reaction. The fan base and online significance of Speedway is obvious to everyone. The team responsible for Adelaide’s MotoGP round is also involved with the upcoming Supercars Grand Final in late November where they will create a 342m temporary Speedway track within Victoria Park to run day and night racing over four days featuring Sprintcars and other categories.

Next year’s Classic Speedway titles have major interest for young and old as there are classes for riders under and over 50 years, Evo and Post Classic Speedway, British-European-American Sidecar, Japanese Sidecar and Evo Sidecar.

Speedway’s short, sharp racing with fans watching at close quarters always makes it a very family friendly event.

Adelaide is not reinventing the wheel regarding bringing the motorcycle tribes together. This year the New Zealand regional city of Invercargill celebrates 20 years of the Burt Munro Challenge and the Southland Motorcycle Club’s centenary. ‘The Burt’ is an extraordinary event for such a small city of just 50,000. Hillclimbs, twilight drags, beach racing, speedway and circuit racing are packed into five days, with riders descending from all over. It’s an entire community embracing motorcycling. And if you want a break from the action you can visit the city’s Classic Motorcycle Mecca museum or E Hayes @ Sons hardware store to see displays honoring Burt. We are talking about the old guy who eventually created and rode the world’s fastest Indian motorcycle. The movie made about him became a worldwide hit that transcended motorcycling as it was a story about human endeavour. And that is what motorcycling is all about in this age of controlled risk.

The closest we have in Australia to this type of all-encompassing event is the recently revived Broadford Easter Bonanza.

All this is well and good but events need naming sponsors. So what big conglomerate reached deep enough into its pockets to secure the naming rights of the Adelaide MotoGP? Last month, Premier Peter Malinauskas, his State Development Minister Chris Picton and South Australian Motor Sport Board CEO Mark Warren ripped the tops off some cans of Red Bull to celebrate the global energy drinks giant committing to sponsor the Adelaide round for the next two years. If they put a shot of vodka into the second can they tasted who could blame them? It was a significant moment as a two-year commitment on this scale confirms the expectations of what will come out of that sponsorship, how significant the change in venue is and what it means to the championship overall.

For an indication of what this sponsorship means for the Adelaide event, one only needs to look at the huge range of off-track activities it sponsors at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) round in Texas at the MotoGP Red Bull Grand Prix. We’re talking stunt shows, fan zones, live performances and interactive experiences.

Red Bull already has links to Adelaide via the Red Bull Ampol Racing Supercars team and this year Oracle Red Bull Racing is bringing out an F1 car for demonstration runs at the final round.

Crews have already started to create the street circuit for the Supercars Grand Final and work is expected to start on the MotoGP circuit within this lead-up, despite an ongoing court case and Adelaide City Council grievances over the project.

Queensland video game developer Joshua Hogan is representing himself in a Federal Court bid to stop MotoGP track work while Adelaide City Council had noted eight “deficiencies” in a submission sent to Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt. Protesters have already lost another Federal Court case to stop trees being cut down for the Greg Norman-designed gold course on the northern edge of the Parklands.

As the MotoGP weekend is unfolding for the last time at Phillip Island, the architect of Adelaide securing MotoGP, Dr Sam Sahin, is pressing on with preparations for The Bend hosting Round Two of the 2027 Shannons Australian Superbike Championship on 13-15 November. A cheeky poster has the headline ‘The World is Coming’. Is it a reference to the timing making it possible for European riders to come to The Bend… or is it a reference to the start of a new era of racing in SA?

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