Can one man (or woman) be too successful? In professional sports, maybe it can! Not for the athlete in question, but for the spectators. Since professional sports exist only because there are people paying to watch.
Source *Rea, with Davies and Laverty on the podium after Race 2 in Laguna Seca)
Professional Sports are soap operas for men
Barry Hearn, Darts Promoter
Motorcycle racing fans are no exception. They want to watch the underdog win, see a rider triumph against all odds and in general seeing the applecart being upset. Yet there have been times in motorcycle racing, where one man has raced in such a flawless and fearless manner, that the competition has little left to respond with.
Currently, Rea is the undisputed king of World Superbike. After winning three Championships on the trot, he is dominating the 2018 season. The fact that Rea is on the best bike on the grid doesn't help the competition!
This weekend at Laguna Seca, Rea once again made a clean sweep of things, winning both the races. Even the reverse grid order for race 2 hasn't help spice things up as the organisers had hoped. The Kawasaki rider made quick work of the competition before hitting the front and disappearing. Eventually leaving it a fight for second place, both in the race and in the championship.
Easy way out
The easiest way to ensure Rea didn't win another WSBK championship was to have him move to MotoGP! Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Rea is on the wrong side of 30 and MotoGP teams are just not interested in production motorcycle racing.
In the recent past, only Cal Crutchlow, Ben Spies and Danilo Petrucci have successfully moved to GP racing from production bike racing.
The opposite of what race fans were hoping happened. Rea signed up for another two years with Kawasaki.
So who is going to stop the Rea Juggernaut?
From the looks of things, nobody. Tom Sykes, Chaz Davies, Marco Melandri, Michael van der Mark, Alex Lowes and Eugene Laverty have all shown that they are capable of winning podiums and races. But each of these riders have their bogey tracks. Circuits at which they manage to string together a couple of 5th place (or worse) positions. This doesn't happen with Rea, when he isn't winning, he is on the podium. That consistency is hard to match by any of his competitors.
Aren't the other manufacturers interested in beating Rea?
Honda is a private effort by the Ten Kate team and get barely any support from the Japanese manufacturer. MotoGP is of prime interest for the company, while WSBK just isn't worth investing in.
Yamaha is getting in the groove and has two fast riders. But neither has the experience of mounting a championship challenge just yet. The company is also at risk of losing one of their two fast riders to rival factories.
Ducati has the money, riders and will to win the championship. And when Davies is on a roll, he is nigh on unstoppable. But things haven't come together for the duration of a season for the Bologna manufacturer.
Aprilia and BMW, like Honda aren't investing heavily in World Superbike. The former concentrating their efforts on building their MotoGP project, the latter happy to sell bikes without racing.
Where does that leave the spectator?
Heading for MotoGP! WSBK isn't helped by the fact that GP racing is currently going through a Golden Era, with some of the most successful racers battling every Sunday, with the racing and championship being highly unpredictable and volatile.
Viewership for GP racing is at an all time high, while the dwindling numbers in WSBK aren't impressive. This won't be changing anytime soon. Until some exceptionally talented youngster hits the circuit and takes the fight to Rea, something like what Ben Spies did almost a decade ago!
Until then, Rea will join the illustrious group of racers like Mick Doohan, Valentino Rossi, Agostini who made racing boring by being super successful!
The next race will be from the 6th to 8th July in Misano. Maybe something different will happen there!