Building and running a BSB race bike – how much really goes into it?

Although a superbike may look like a regular machine you could ride out of a dealership, it really is anything but. Carl Stevens recently caught up with the Oxford Products Racing team at Moto Rapido to find out just what it takes to build and race one of these weapons.

Whether you’re heavily into your racing or not, there’s no denying that top level racing bikes really are works of art; machines sculpted with the sole purpose of being as fast as possible. Every single part on a superbike there for function, whether that’s to keep it on the cusp of the rulebook, or to shave off those vital tenths when it comes down to gunning for a lap time.

And standing at the side of a track, although a superbike looks trick it’s only when you get up close that you can really appreciate the time, effort and extravagance that goes into creating one of these monsters. For example, the Oxford Products Racing Ducati is a relatively small team, running out of the workshop of Moto Rapido Ducati in Hampshire, yet even so, there is a mechanic whose sole, full-time job is just to work on Tommy Bridewell’s race bike. It’s not just a case of bolting some bits on either, oh no, as nothing is that simple. For example, with such a busy schedule for this year, the team need a bunch of engines in rotation, yet even these take days to put together. They come direct from Ducati Corse in Italy, and arrive as multiple boxes of parts and bolts, that is then assembled by the crew in Winchester. But it sets the scene nicely for the little details; the thumb brake, for example operates the clutch and the clutch lever operates the rear brake, and every single part of the Panigale looks like it was crafted to perfection – which, if you’ve ever built a race bike before, you’ll know is nigh on impossible.

And then pretty much everything around the engine has been designed solely for this exact machine, in this exact championship. The exhaust and the tank for example are built for Moto Rapido to an exact spec, which then means that they need to make bespoke fairings to fit on, which then means that they alter the engine covers to look and fit nicely… the list goes on, and that’s before they even switch it on.

Because that’s where the hard work really begins. In line with British Superbike rules, all machines run a spec Motec ECU, which means that the amount of fine tuning that has to be done to create a fast, effective race bike that will make a tyre last over a full race distance is infinite. And we haven’t even touched on the datalogging of brakes, throttle trace, suspension…

But don’t just take our word for it – Watch the video below to get the inside line from Steve ‘Wilf’ Moore on what it takes to manage a successful superbike squad.