AMA Superbike Championship is an American motorcycle racing series that has been run every year beginning in 1976. For most of its existence it has been considered the premier motorcycle road racing series in the United States. It is sanctioned by the AMA American Motorcyclist Association since its inception, and the promotion of the series has been licensed to several organizations over the years. Since 2015 the series has been run and promoted by MotoAmerica, who also manage several other AMA professional road racing championships, including the popular 600cc Supersport class. The AMA Superbike Championship was created in 1976 as a new motorcycle road racing series taking advantage of the newest large displacement production road-going motorcycles of up to 1000cc's that were increasingly popular with American riders. The series was initially called "Superbike Production" and was initially modeled on a regional series that had been run in California in the previous years. Up until this the most prestigious racing series in the United States was the AMA Grand National Series which required competition in five different formats 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile, 1 mile and TT courses, which were all run on dirt ovals, and pavement racing. Europe, under the guidance of the FIM, or Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme, had a much more developed motorcycle road racing world championship, but it didn't include any American venues in the series. In 1986, the AMA recognized the changing nature of motorcycle racing by making the Grand National Championship into a dirt-track-only series; road-racing rounds were branched off into a separate championship which was named the AMA Superbike Championship. The fact that the rules were set up to compete using the same large displacement production bikes that people saw in the showrooms quickly made the series popular with fans, racers and after several seasons motorcycle manufacturers took a direct interest and began sponsoring teams and riders. History 1976 to 1982: The 1000cc era At the inception of the series there was stiff competition between the more experienced teams racing European twin cylinder bikes, which included the BMW R90S, Ducati and MotoGuzzi motorcycles and the teams racing the more powerful Japanese inline fours from Kawasaki, Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha. While the Japanese bikes produced more horsepower, the European bikes tended to have superior handling. The inaugural series in 1976 was won by rider Reg Pridmore on a BMW R90S owned by Team Butler and Smith.