Asia Road Racing Championship
| Sport | Motorcycle sport |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| Country | Asia |
| Most recent champion(s) |
Zaqhwan Zaidi (SuperSports 600cc) Apiwat Wongthananon (Asia Production 250cc) Wahyu Aji Trilaksana (Underbone 130c) Hiroki Nakamura (Asia Dream Cup) Jefri Tosema (Suzuki Asian Challenge) |
The FIM Asia Road Racing Championship is the regional motorcycle road racing championship for Asia, held since 1996.
This championship is part of the production-based category of racing, similar to the Supersport World Championship, British Supersport Championship and AMA Supersport Championship. Modified versions of road-going motorcycles available to the public are featured in the race.
The championship is currently divided into three open-make classes and two mono-brand developmental classes. The open-make categories are the SuperSports 600cc, Asia Production 250cc and Underbone 130cc. The developmental classes race on single-make motorcycles. They are the Honda Asia Dream Cup and the Suzuki Asian Challenge.
The Asia Road Racing Championship was first organized in 1996 as part of an Asian-wide initiative boost the development of the sport of motorcycle racing in the continent. The championship received the endorsement of the Federation Internationale Motocycliste in 1997 and has been recognized since as the Asian continental championship for the FIM.
The commercial rights are owned by Two Wheels Motor Racing, with FIM Asia as the sports sanctioning body.
Each season consists of six rounds with two races organized per round.
The championship tours in Asia but is open to riders from all nationalities.
The Asia Road Racing 2016 season consisted of 12 races at 5 circuits in 5 Asian countries.
Other venues that had previously hosted the Asia Road Racing Championship included:
The road racing series began on 2-stroke engines.
The gradual shift to 4-stroke engines began in 2000 when the SuperSports 600cc class replaced the previous 250cc bikes as the premier class of the championship.
The Asia Road Racing Championship is a mix of well-known riders racing against upcoming talents from the Asian region. Some of the big names that have contributed to the growth of the sport of road racing in Asia include Katsuaki Fujiwara, Ryuichi Kiyonari, Yuki Takahashi and Noriyuki Haga. In 2016, Anthony West was the latest addition in the roster of internationally recognized names.
This formula of pitting upcoming talents against seasoned campaigners have resulted in a number of successes. In recent years, riders from the Asian region are beginning to make their breakthrough into the MotoGP arena. These include:
On July 4 to 11, 2016, five young riders from the Asia Production 250cc class became the first batch of riders to be trained at the VR46 Academy in Italy as part of the Yamaha|VR46 Master Camp. They were Peerapong Loiboonpeng (21, Thailand), Imanuel Putra Pratna (19, Indonesia), Galang Hendra Pratama (17, Indonesia), Soichiro Minamimoto (16, Japan) and Kasma Daniel Kasmayudin (16, Malaysia).
...
Wikipedia