Corser grew up in Wollongong and won both the Australian Superbike Championship and the AMA Superbike Championship before turning to the Superbike World Championship. He made a handful of wildcard WSBK appearances that produced five podiums and demonstrated sufficient pace that the series took him seriously as a full-time competitor. He adopted the number 11 after being classified 11th in WSBK for 1994, a number he used for many years.
Corser joined WSBK full-time in 1995. After taking pole at the opening round, he won at the Salzburgring in round 5 and later at Laguna Seca, finishing second overall behind series champion Aaron Slight. In 1996 Corser claimed his first Superbike World Championship, becoming the youngest champion in the series at that point.
The 1997 season was spent in the 500cc Grand Prix World Championship, partnered with Luca Cadalora in a Power Horse-backed Yamaha team. The campaign was fragmented and unsuccessful, and Corser returned to WSBK for 1998.
Back in WSBK for 1998, Corser was again a serious title challenger. He led the standings before the final round, took pole position, but crashed and broke ribs in a warm-up accident at the finale, surrendering the title. He delivered a memorable double win at Laguna Seca that year, the second race won by a margin of just 0.005 seconds.
In 1999 he was teamed with Carl Fogarty on Davide Tardozzi's squad, with Fogarty winning the title and Corser finishing third. In 2000 and 2001 he raced factory Aprilia RSV-Mille machinery. He took Aprilia to its first WSBK victories in 2000 and opened 2001 with a double win in South Africa, but a double DNF at Monza ended his championship hopes.
From 2002 to 2004 Corser raced with Carl Fogarty's Petronas Superbike team. The 2002 season was largely developmental, and results over 2003 and 2004 were modest, his best result in 2004 being third place.
For 2005, Corser moved to the Alstare Suzuki team. A run of early-season victories on the GSX-R1000 carried him to a second Superbike World Championship, with Chris Vermeulen and Noriyuki Haga proving the strongest opposition as the season progressed.
Corser joined Yamaha for 2007 alongside Noriyuki Haga. He was outpaced by his teammate and finished fifth overall, but remained with the team for 2008, pipping Haga to finish runner-up behind Troy Bayliss. In 2009 Corser signed with BMW Motorrad to help develop their new Superbike, one of the few riders of his calibre to take on a manufacturer's earliest competitive season. His best result in the first half was an eighth place at Phillip Island. In 2010, still with BMW, he took the marque's first ever WSBK podium in race two at Monza. He also claimed pole positions at Misano and scored points consistently before a practice crash forced him to miss Brno.
Corser held the record for World Superbike career starts with 377 until 2023. Among his notable statistical achievements: he matched the championship record for pole positions at a single track, taking pole four times each at Philip Island and Valencia. He accumulated 13 podiums at Misano, 11 each at Laguna Seca and Philip Island, and ten at Donington Park, placing him among the most track-consistent riders in the championship's history.
Troy Corser's career spanned two decades and two world championships, a combination that places him among the most enduring figures in Superbike World Championship history. His willingness to develop new machinery for Petronas and BMW late in his career, combined with sustained competitiveness through his late thirties, underscores the longevity that ultimately produced his record start tally.