Jeremy McWilliams and John McGuinness, two of the biggest names in racing, will be back at Phillip Island later this month to race for the British team against Aussies, Kiwis and Yanks at the annual Phillip Island Classic, joined by former British Supersport champion and half-Aussie Glen Richards.

This iconic event, which is Australia’s largest historic motorcycle race meeting and the third-largest motorcycling event on the Australian calendar behind the MotoGP and World Superbikes, enters its 22nd consecutive year in 2015.

The Island Classic features the Tahbilk International Challenge, with a new scoring system introduced in 2014, which will see the winning nation crowned according to points accumulated by its top five riders across the four races. In the past, points – or a lack of thereof – were awarded to all ten riders in each team.

Along with team points, there’s an individual honour for the winning rider with the most points, who wins the Ken Wootton Memorial Trophy, named after Ken Wootton, one of Australia’s greatest motorcycle racing journalists, who passed away in 2011.
For the tens of thousands of fans who make the annual pilgrimage to Phillip Island on the last weekend of January, the event has become a celebration of everything two wheels, both the bikes and the race stars themselves.

Each year the Island Classic draws more bikes and competitors. In 2014, 343 riders took the reins of over 450 bikes/sidecars. Another highlight of the weekend is the annual dinner, which takes place this year on the Friday evening.

Over 650 people attended the Saturday night dinner in 2014, when one of the funniest stand-up talks came from the one and only John McGuinness.

This year the special guest at the dinner and the event itself will be Jeremy Burgess. “I can’t wait to get to the Island Classic,” said Burgess, who guided Wayne Gardner, Mick Doohan and Valentino Rossi to their world titles. “I have always wanted to attend, but it has always been difficult with MotoGP pre-season testing commitments. Now that is not an issue, I’m free to make the trek over from the Adelaide Hills.”

If you’re reading this thinking it’s just old bikes riding around for the weekend, think again. This is full on, and no one wants to finish second. As Isle of Man TT superstar Cam Donald said in the Island Classic documentary, “There is a full 12 months-worth of bragging rights. We only get one of these a year, so you’ve got to make it count!”
To give you a rough idea of what lap times the P5 bikes are doing, Jeremy McWilliams’ pole time last year was 1min 38.376, which would have qualified him in fifth for 2014’s Australian Supersport races, the support event at the Australian MotoGP. It’s amazing to think that McWilliams’s qualifying time on an old 1982 Suzuki Harris F1 was only 1.454s off a 2014 Yamaha R6 pole position time. That gives you a good idea of how hard these boys are pushing.

In 2014, the Australian team won the International Challenge team points with a total of 1161 from the Poms’ 916. New Zealand took third with 553 points, with the US a further 62 points adrift.

The UK has once again beefed up its team with more of the best riders in the land, led by 50-year-old McWilliams, the joint winner of the Ken Wootton Memorial Trophy last year with three-time Australian Superbike champion, Shawn Giles. In 2014 it was a case of what ‘could have been’ for McWilliams. During all four races McWilliams’ Yamaha Harris F1 ignition kept cutting out. It was so dangerous that Roger Winfield didn’t want McWilliams to take part in the final race. McWilliams went ahead and raced. The ignition cut out three times, but the Northern Irishman still managed to bring the bike home in third.

The man who was the centre of attention at last year’s Island Classic, John McGuinness, also returns for another crack at the track. With 7-8-8-7 race results last year, McGuinness finished fifth overall, just two points ahead of Mike Edwards. Fifth place is pretty impressive, when you take into consideration that the first time the former brick layer rode the 1982 Honda Harris F1 was on the Thursday before the event officially got under way.

McGuinness, 42, openly admitted after the event that he underestimated just how fast the pace was going to be. “The pace was just ridiculous. Even if I did 30 days-worth of testing I still don’t think I would have ran with those leading Aussies, they were special. Hats off to Jeremy as well, he did a solid job.”

There are a few other big name players set to make their debut at the Island Classic are Conor Cummins, and half Aussie, half Brit rider Glen Richards. Richards’s one and only Australian road racing title came in 1994 when he won the 125cc championship. Four years later he packed his bags and headed to the UK to begin his racing overseas in BSB, and that is where he has been ever since.

While the UK team is looking very promising for this year’s fight, the betting market still shows that Australia are the favourites heading into the International Challenge. A quick look at the rider line up explains why.

On the ‘boxing Kangaroo’ side we see Giles, Donald, 1999 Australian Superbike and 2009 World Endurance champion Steve Martin, and BSB star Brendan Roberts, who made his debut last year and managed to finish in third place, just six-points shy of McWilliams and Giles.

Another star, who will fly the flag for Australia is former 500cc and BSB racer, now turned sports editor for Australian Motorcycle News, Paul Young. ‘Youngy’ will race a Honda Harris F1, prepared by Australian team captain Rex Wolfenden.
Last year Young competed in the final two rounds of the Swann Insurance Australasian Superbike Championship in the Supersport class aboard a Kawasaki ZX6R for the BCperformance Motogo outfit.

The 2011 FIM European Superstock 600 champion Jed Metcher will also line up on the grid for Australia. Metcher, who has signed a two-year deal to race for the PR Racing Kawasaki team in the British Superbike championship, has been working closely with Race Center, a team in Brunswick, Victoria, developing a superbike to compete as a wildcard rider in the opening round of the World Superbike Championship in late February.

“I have always wanted to compete at the Island Classic” said Metcher. “I have never had the bike to make it happen. But this Katana is quite nice to ride and is very stable, so I’m hoping to be very competitive and have a really fun weekend.”

Another high-profile rider in Australia who has also been selected for the squad is the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Victorian Supersport champion Ryan Taylor. Taylor rode as a wildcard rider in the opening round of the World Supersport Championship at the Island in 2014, which saw him come home in 16th position, the only Aussie rider to finish the race. The 27 year old will saddle up on a Yamaha TZ 750.

All this talent, all these bikes, a 4.445km racetrack, an open pit area for fans to rub shoulders with the stars and check out the bike porn, all adds up to one thing, a great weekend on the island.

If you are unable to make the trip out to the island, never fear, Bikesport News will have everything covered for you, from pictures to interviews, both online and in print.