Bayliss: The Phillip Island viewpoint

Fergus Cameron, the Managing Director of the Phillip Island circuit, was asked about the ‘Bayliss Factor’ the day before track action took place at Phillip Island, but he was still unsure of how many extra spectators the return of the Aussie SBK King would bring through the gates.

“We really have no idea,” said Cameron, who knows it should make a real difference all the same. “The decision – after the unfortunate circumstances we had for Troy to get a ride, which was very unfortunate for the other rider – only arose in the last few days. Our ability to promote this was very limited, but since we put the message out last night we have had a lot of enquiries. It will be interesting to see how it goes. I cannot make predictions, how many more people we will get in. I have no idea, because people have to also think about accommodation. We have heaps and heaps of room in the campground and it is going to be a fine weekend, so it will not be an issue. People can rock up and pay at the gate so there is no issue with that and there is plenty of room, we have no capacity issues.”

Regarding previous years, Cameron gave examples of previous crowd figures. “We had around 56,000 for the Superbikes last year, for the three days,” he said. “Before we had been as high as 70,000 for WSB, and those were in the days of the two Troys (Bayliss and Corser) so there could be mid-sixties or something like that (this year).”