“It’s bright and colourful, and very exciting. And because the motorcycle racing had this image of black Harley Davidson bad guys, and they started to see how spectacular the sport is, how exciting it is, visually watching the riders climb over the bike in coloured suits. The TV coverage wasn’t very good those days but it was enough to capture the nation’s appetite on what the bike racing is today. And of course, after I won the world championship in ’87, and I went on to ’88 and so on, Australia was very… I was in the front of newspapers and the coverage was huge in Australia, and that’s when they decided then to try and apply for a Grand Prix in Australia, and they then resurrected the old Phillip Island circuit, which was originally a dirt track, and now you see how good it is.”

Source: MotoGP.com – Read Full Article Here