The serious leisure career hierarchy of Australian motorcycle road racers

The academic study of motorcycle racing represents a relatively new area of research. While numerous studies have been conducted on motorcycle gangs, no studies have investigated the serious leisure world of the motorcycle racer, a sport in which motorcyclists may reach speeds in excess of 200 km/hour, with accidents likely to result in serious injury or death. A small sample of eight motorcycle road racers who, at the time of this research, were competing at the national level of the sport in Australia were interviewed by telephone with the conversations recorded for transcription and content analysis. An exploratory qualitative research design underpinned by grounded theory and involving the use of an interview schedule composed of open-structured interviews gave each rider the freedom to outline their own understandings and interpretations of how they engaged in their chosen sport. Common themes that emerged from their personal stories included a discussion of what one racer referred to as a ‘‘rider hierarchy’’ within the motorcycle road racing fraternity, which recognised different skills and experience levels among riders. The novice rider was placed at the bottom, entry level with the factory rider at the top. After analysis of the study data, a model was developed to describe the rider hierarchy as it was perceived by the study respondents.