AMA Superbike Championship

The series began as the AMA Open Production class, hosted alongside the AMA Road Race National at Laguna Seca Raceway in 1973 and 1974. AMA race promoters Gavin Trippe and Bruce Cox invited production-based racers to compete, requiring machines to retain their stock exhaust, brakes, instruments, and carburetors. Yvon Duhamel won the first Open Production race aboard a Kawasaki Z1. The format proved popular with both competitors and spectators who appreciated the connection between race machines and publicly available motorcycles.

By 1976 the class had grown sufficiently to become an official championship contested at all AMA Road Race Nationals, renamed Superbike Production. Reg Pridmore took the inaugural championship on a BMW R90S, and European twin-cylinder machines dominated the early seasons before the Japanese inline-four manufacturers sorted the handling difficulties of their more powerful bikes. Pridmore took three championships in the series' early years, and later riders including Freddie Spencer and Eddie Lawson emerged during this period.

Safety concerns over the escalating power of 1000cc four-cylinder machines prompted the AMA to reduce the displacement limit for four-cylinder motorcycles to 750cc from 1983. Honda arrived prepared with the technologically advanced VF750F, a liquid-cooled V4 with a perimeter frame and monoshock suspension designed specifically for racing. Despite initially losing out to the Team Muzzy Kawasaki of Wayne Rainey in 1983, Honda went on to win five consecutive championships from 1984, with rider Fred Merkel claiming three titles.

The late 1980s brought increased competition from Yoshimura Suzuki, who eventually took the championship with Jamie James in 1989. The 1988 launch of the Superbike World Championship internationally elevated the importance of production-based superbike racing globally and introduced the concept of the homologation special — a motorcycle produced in minimal quantities specifically to meet production rules and achieve a competitive advantage. Machines such as the Ducati 851, Honda RC30, Honda RC45, and Ducati 916 shaped the competition through the 1990s.

Ducati's Fast by Ferracci team, fielded by Doug Polen, was dominant in 1993, taking the first European championship win in 17 years and the first ever for Ducati in the series. Australian Troy Corser extended the success to 1994. Honda's RC45, introduced in 1994, eventually delivered Miguel Duhamel the 1995 championship — Duhamel becoming the only Canadian to win the AMA Superbike title. Mat Mladin on Yoshimura Suzuki machinery then compiled three consecutive championships from 1999 to 2001, while Nicky Hayden claimed the 2002 title at the age of 21, the youngest ever winner of the championship.

Privateer access had eroded significantly by the early 2000s, with factory-built homologation specials dominating and production-based alternatives uncompetitive. The AMA responded for 2003 by permitting near-stock 1000cc multi-cylinder machines, setting a higher minimum weight to balance them against the more extensively modified 750cc machines which remained eligible with a capacity increase to 800cc.

The rule change proved decisive. Yoshimura Suzuki switched to the GSX-R1000 and won the 2003 championship, beginning an extraordinary run of seven consecutive titles from 2003 to 2009. Mladin claimed four of those championships and Ben Spies three, with Mladin's total of seven AMA Superbike championships standing as the record for most titles by any rider. However overall participation declined following the rule change, with Ducati withdrawing factory support in 2006 citing disadvantageous regulations for twin-cylinder machines, and grid numbers falling from approximately 50 per race in 2004 to 27 per race by 2008.

In 2008 the AMA sold the commercial rights to its road racing series to the Daytona Motorsports Group, led by Jim France of NASCAR. The transition was intended to attract investment and expanded coverage, but factory withdrawals by Honda and Kawasaki in 2009, compounded by the 2008 financial crisis, undermined the ambition. The number of annual rounds fell from twelve in 2009 to six by 2014. The Yamaha Factory Racing team largely defined this period, winning the championship every year from 2010 to 2016, with Josh Hayes claiming four titles and Cameron Beaubier two.

MotoAmerica, an affiliate of the KRAVE Group involving former champion Wayne Rainey, acquired the commercial rights to the series in 2015 and aligned the championship's classes closely with FIM World Superbike regulations. The series expanded to ten rounds, secured television agreements with Fox Sports and NBC Sports along with live streaming via YouTube, and attracted renewed factory involvement from Honda and Ducati alongside long-standing supporters Suzuki and Yamaha.

Yamaha continued to dominate through 2023, winning six consecutive championships from 2018 with Cameron Beaubier taking three titles and Jake Gagne three more. Beaubier's 2020 championship was his fifth overall, placing him second behind Mladin in the all-time standings. The Warhorse HSBK Ducati team broke the streak in 2024, with Josh Herrin delivering Ducati their first AMA Superbike title since 1994.

The championship season typically comprises nine to ten rounds from April through September. Each round runs across Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with two Superbike races per weekend, occasionally three at select venues. Race distances range from approximately 40 to 50 miles. Grid positions for Race 1 are determined by qualifying, while starting order for Race 2 follows the finishing order of Race 1.

Recent host circuits have included Barber Motorsports Park, Road Atlanta, Road America, Laguna Seca, Virginia International Raceway, Circuit of the Americas, and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.