Main Section

History

Our event on the 17th June 2010 at Silverstone will be the 19th Day of Champions that Riders for Health have organised.

The first event was held at Brands Hatch in November 1990. In 1991 Day of Champions moved to Donington Park where we stayed until the MotoGP moved to Silverstone in 2010. We are looking forward to our new home at the Northamptonshire circuit and we are sure that it will be as good as ever.

The movement that would develop into Riders for Health began in the motorcycling GP paddock as a fundraising effort by Randy Mamola. Randy was particularly interested in helping disadvantaged children. Following a trip to Somalia when it became clear that motorcycles could play a leading role in delivering health care.

Randy and Andrea and Barry Coleman began to involve more riders, among them Kenny Roberts (snr) Wayne Rainey. Thus it was that motorcycling became the only sport ever to have given rise to a major humanitarian organisation.

Over the next 20 years Day of Champions grew in size and became a key part of the British GP weekend. Now all the teams and riders look forward to opening up the paddock once at year to the general public.

If you are very lucky you may be able to get paddock tickets for other GPs, or a few lucky people are given tours of the pitlane, but Day of Champions is the only race in the season where large numbers of people can walk freely through the paddock and pitlane. Day of Champions is truely unique. And what is more it is the only place where all the riders appear on stage at the world famous Day of Champions auction.

They all give their time to help support the work of Riders for Health, at what is a very busy time for them.

Day of Champions now attracts around 5,000 visitors and is one of the highlights of the British motorcycle racing calendar.

In 2009 Day of Champions raised £177,000 to help support Riders’ work in Africa.