Troy Bayliss

Born in the town of Taree, Australia, on 30 March 1969, Troy Bayliss had been riding mini bikes in and around the woods near his home ever since he was a child. His dream of becoming a professional rider began at the age of 10, when he was mainly involved in motocross and dirt track racing, but his family’s financial difficulties forced him to take a temporary break from racing. Later, after completing his studies, he began working as an apprentice body shop mechanic at the local auto repair shop: hence his Italian nickname of il Carrozziere.

“I always wanted to race. I’ve been riding motorcycles since I was 4: I used to go out the back door and head off into the bush for miles. I felt so free. As soon as I was old enough to get my driver’s license, I applied for a loan and bought a 1992 ZXR750 H1 while my mum and dad were on holiday. I soon found myself doing crazy stuff on the roads... I was going way too fast, and if things didn’t change I would have ended up in jail, or even in the cemetery. That’s when I started competing, and everything changed…” Troy Bayliss

In 1992, at the age of 23, with the help of his and Kim’s savings, he purchased his first racing bike, and was finally able to return to the world of motorsports. He entered the Australian 250GP championship with a Kawasaki KR-1, and moved on to the 600 class the following year when he married Kim, the love of his life.

But it was in 1997, at the age of 28, that he finally got the chance to make a name for himself by racing a Suzuki 250 at the Phillip Island Superbike World Championship in place of injured team rider Molenaar. He started in the second row of the grid and, to pretty much everyone’s surprise, he came in sixth just behind Max Biaggi and Ralf Waldmann, who were racing for the title that Sunday.

Despite his results, his age was not on his side. Having been hastily deemed too “old” by the media circus surrounding the World Championship, he was unable to get a spot the following season. In the British Superbike championship, however, his age was irrelevant. There, it was all about talent, and his talent was noticed by the manager of the Ducati GSE race team, Darrell Healey. Darrell asked him to race with the Ducati 916 for the 1998 season. Darrell later went on to become Troy’s manager throughout his ten-year career.

“The first time I rode a Ducati was during a free practice session at Silverstone. I had just signed with the GSE race team. Every English media outlet had sent photographers, because I was the new hope for the future, and a lot was expected of me. As soon as I released the clutch, I almost dropped the bike right there in front of the reporters. The first year was hard, but I got through it... ". Troy Bayliss

While his opponents knew the narrow and dangerous tracks on the other side of the Channel well, for Troy each race was a leap in the dark, and it took him a year to get up to speed. After achieving a brilliant sixth place in the ranking in his debut season, he won the British BSBK title in 1999 after a grand finale at Donington Park, in which Troy’s tenacity and stubbornness were on full display.

Having fallen in love with this simple, genuine, and extremely fast young phenomenon, Ducati offered him America: and so began his adventure in the AMA 2000 Championship.

December 1999, the first trial at Daytona. While Bayliss had never seen oval curves before, he came out of the pits and began banking as if it were second nature to him. By evening, the Italian brand’s technicians were looking at each other with amazement: “This kid is something special”. But Ducati had always been cursed at Daytona, and not even Bayliss was able to overcome it. After a lightning fast start and numerous laps in the lead at the Daytona 200, he ultimately crashed. This puts an end to his dreams of glory, he thought.

“At the Daytona 200, in 2000, he amazed everyone by earning pole position, and led the race almost the entire time, until a small technical failure forced him to retire. We met at the Hilton Hotel in Daytona Beach, and Troy said: “ Sorry Paolo, I hope you’re not angry and that you’re not here to fire me…” A few weeks later we asked Troy to replace Carl Fogarty, first at Sugo and then at Monza…” Paolo Ciabatti, Sporting Director for Ducati Corse.

Troy returned home for a few days, and one Sunday night the phone rang again. It was Paolo Ciabatti again. “Carl Fogarty was injured at Phillip Island and we need a rider to replace him on Sunday in Japan. You’re already in Australia and you don’t have anything else on your schedule. We’ll see you at Sugo”.
He hung up the phone and sent him a last-minute plane ticket to the Land of the Rising Sun.

Bayliss called his wife Kim, his inseparable companion on these adventures: it was time to pack their bags again. Troy knows this was the chance of a lifetime. At Sugo he would have the opportunity to ride the factory 996, the bike with which Fogarty had won the title the previous season. Bayliss was so excited that he even got lost when he arrived at Narita International Airport! It took Davide Tardozzi a few hours to find Troy and take him to the Sugo motorsports facility.
The weekend was an utter failure. Bayliss took off like a bolt towards the first curve, but the rush of the start betrayed the Australian rider, who slipped after making contact with a local competitor. Incredibly, the same thing happened in race two, and Bayliss only managed to ride 600 metres. He therefore crashed at the first curve in both heats, without ever finishing a single lap. For Troy, the experience at Sugo felt like a missed opportunity...a dream that had already vanished.

Feeling the pressure to save the championship after Fogarty’s injury, the Ducati Corse team decided to put Luca Cadalora in for the next race in Donington. Luca had unmistakable talent, and a good 2-stroke career behind him, but the move to the 4-stroke proved to be anything but simple. In England, the rider from Modena was forced to withdraw on day one, and finished 17th on day two.

It was the year 2000. Ever since his quadruple pass in Monza, Troy had held a special place in the hearts of all his fans, who that day had unwittingly witnessed the birth of a legend.
But the best was yet to come. And it didn’t take long. In the next appointment in Hockenheim, Troy won his first SBK World Championship race, and then, once again on board the 996R, took the world championship in 2001 with 15 podium finishes. At Imola, the last race of the season, he fell and broke his collarbone. But he had already secured the title with a round to spare, and his only regret was that he wasn’t able to celebrate it with his fans.

The World Superbike season that no one will ever forget is that of 2002, which set the stage for the legendary match-up between Troy Bayliss and Colin Edwards. For every fan of modified production models, that season represented one of the most exciting times of WSBK history.
Riding his Ducati 998 F02, Troy dominated the first part of the championship, until Colin Edward mounted a comeback on his Honda VTR 1000 SP-2. In fact, race after race, Edwards began to close the gap between himself and the reigning world champion. At the last race of the season, in Imola, there was only a one-point difference between them. Unfolding before a crowd of over 95,000 spectators, the last race became an almost chivalrous duel between the two legends, with decisive and spectacular passes taking place at every twist and turn of the track, so much so that all the people of Romagna who were watching the unforgettable spectacle on TV rushed to the gates of the Imola track for race two.

After a truly adrenaline-packed season, Colin Edwards won the world championship by just 11 points. This was accompanied by an unforgettable embrace between the two riders after the race, when Edward hugged Troy as if to console him for the disappointment he had suffered. The Texas Tornado had managed to overcome his greatest rival, while the former body shop mechanic from Taree had shown the world that a true champion can still be great even after enduring the most heart-wrenching defeat.

Despite not winning the SBK title, Troy was incredibly determined, and set out for a new challenge in the MotoGP championship. He wanted his family close to him, so he decided to get a house in Monte Carlo, where his new team mate already lived: Loris Capirossi.
In his debut year in the premier class he finished sixth in the final standings, and won the title of “Rookie of the year” thanks to three splendid podium finishes in Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic. Obviously everyone was hoping that it would just be the start of a great MotoGP success story. But unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
What Troy and his fans didn’t know was that this would actually mark the beginning of two terribly disappointing seasons (2003 - 2004), to the point that, in 2005, Troy switched from Ducati to Honda. However, the decision to switch to Honda in 2005 didn’t change the situation, and Troy, who had also suffered a wrist injury that kept him from competing for several months, would not even be able to finish the world championship tournament.

For the 2006 season, Troy got back in touch with his old friends from the Superbike team, Ciabatti and Tardozzi, and went back to racing with the Ducati Xerox team on the 999, a bike that had already won world championships in 2003 and 2004 with Hodgson and Toseland.
The doors in Borgo Panigale, which had actually never closed, were flung open wide for Troy. With the 999 Factory version, the Australian rider rediscovered both his competitiveness and his smile, and went on to win his second world title with three races to spare. 2006 will also be remembered as the year of Troy’s great comeback.

“Troy’s not just going to Valencia to make an appearance. He’s going there with his helmet on! ” Davide Tardozzi

It was the race held on 29 October 2006.
Troy took the top spot on the podium at the Spanish track with the Desmosedici, and, with Capirossi coming in second, Ducati claimed its first double-victory in the MotoGP. With this victory, Troy became the only rider to have won both championships in the same year.
Despite his success, Troy didn’t even think for a moment about remaining in the MotoGP. It was as if a weight had been lifted off him. The goal was to win a third title.

2007 was another difficult year for Troy; after all the successes of the previous year, the 999 was going to be “retired” due to the introduction of the 1098R in 2008, which was still undergoing development.
In Donington it was cold and rainy. Troy was perfectly familiar with that type of climate, but it’s hard to prepare for a cold weekend of racing. But despite the weather, that Sunday started off quite well, and after completing a few laps in Race 1 he managed to gain a good lead on his rivals.
Upon reaching the Coppice corner, one of the fastest, he crashed. His right hand was pinned underneath the bike. When he removed his glove, he saw that his left little finger was almost entirely detached, and he had also suffered a bad blow to the torso. When he arrived in the infirmary, with the adrenaline still pumping, he asked to have what was left of his little finger amputated so he could return a couple of hours later and settle the score with Toseland. Then he passed out.

After leaving hospital on Tuesday, Bayliss decided to show up for the free practice session for the upcoming race in Valencia on Friday. He heroically won the SuperPole on Saturday, finished on the podium in race one, and took sixth place in race two, making Ducati fans fall all the more in love with him.
2008 was the year that Troy bid farewell to competitive racing, but first he had to settle a few scores.
In fact, Troy won his third title with the 1098R, thus becoming the only Ducati rider to have won three titles on three different models (the 996R, the 999 and the 1098R); with eleven victories, including the last two in the final race in Portimao, with astounding passes made on his opponents, Troy ended his incredible career with a total of 52 wins, three SBK titles (2001, 2006, and 2008), second only to Carl Fogarty, and his legendary MotoGP victory in Valencia.
At the age of 39, he left the world of racing, proud of all the memorable milestones he’d achieved since 1998, when he purchased his first motorcycle with his and his wife’s savings. Having paid off his debt to his wife, he decided to return home to try and make a normal life for his family.

After hanging up his helmet, Troy continued to serve as Ducati’s tester for new bike models destined for the Superbike World Championship, and remained bound to the Borgo Panigale manufacturer as a world brand ambassador.

In 2015, seven years after retiring from the world championship, Troy was asked to step in for the injured Davide Giugliano on the Panigale 1199 V2 for team Aruba-Ducati. Sure, the competition and the bikes were completely different, but Bayliss nevertheless managed to earn 25 points at the races in Australia and Thailand, even if he didn’t win a spot on the podium.
After race 2 in Buriram, he announced his definitive retirement from the SBK world championship.

Ever since 2016, he’s been active in ASBK as a co-owner of the DesmoSport Ducati Team, which in 2015 won the ASBK national title with Mike Jones, and this year featured Troy’s youngest son, Oli, making his debut on the Ducati that once belonged to his father.

Troy Bayliss showed himself to be a true fighter, one who can climb on any bike, and win the race.
For some, the name Troy Bayliss is synonymous with Superbike. For others, it’s synonymous with Ducati. His story certainly goes far beyond the three world championships he won on the modified production models with Borgo Panigale. Troy won a lot, and did so by giving it everything he had.
He won the hearts of all the fans, the same fans who come to every World Ducati Week for the chance to see him at least once in person, and for whom he has always had time for a smile and an autograph; and the same fans who bought themselves Ducati motorcycles just to be a bit like him.

“Without those thousands of fans, this sport wouldn’t be what it is today. I have always given 100% to racing, and my fans have shown me that they really appreciated it… It’s great to know that, wherever you go, there are people who support you, and are watching every step you take in your career.“ Troy Bayliss