Shane 'Shakey' Byrne remains the most successful rider in the history of the Bennetts British Superbike Championship, winning six titles and amassing 85 race wins.
The Londoner began his illustrious career taking part at club racing level, combining racing with work for Fastbikes magazine, which saw him move into British Championship action.
Shakey made his debut in 1999, on a privateer Kawasaki before getting an outing on the factory Kawasaki team bike at the final round at Donington Park.
Shakey’s first title victory in the championship came in 2001 when he became the BSB Privateer Cup champion, winning 22 of the 26 races.
In 2002 he claimed his first race win in BSB with Renegade Ducati before the following season he was lifted his first of six titles with the MonsterMob Ducati team before moving to the world stage in both MotoGP.
Shakey returned to BSB action in 2006 with Rizla Suzuki before switching back to PBM a year later onboard a Honda. It was to be another winning year for the former champion in 2008, following a switch to the GSE Racing squad campaigning the Airwaves Ducati. As reigning champion he then moved into the World Superbike Championship before he came back to BSB to fight for another title in 2011 with HM Plant Honda.
A year later and Shakey was back in the familiar PBM camp, securing a third title in 2012 onboard a Kawasaki, their first championship victory in 20 years. He remained with the team for the following season, battling with Alex Lowes until the final race of the season, where he narrowly missed out on another title crown.
Shakey won the ‘War for Four’ with Kiyonari as the title battle looked to go down to the wire in 2014 but his Japanese rival was forced out of the final races of the season after crashing in warm up and breaking his collarbone.
A year later and PBM switched to Ducati with the new Panigale R, and in 2016 Shakey took the Be Wiser Ducati to a fifth BSB title. Shakey remained with the team for 2017 and again the title went down to the final round, for him to overhaul Leon Haslam at the final round to make it six championship victories!
In 2018, Shakey was bidding for an unprecedented seventh title; however, a crash during testing at Snetterton left him recovering from serious injuries, which have currently left him sidelined from competing.
