Blog Entry

19/02/07 - First Race Rapidly Approaching

It hasn’t been an easy off season for MIST Suzuki Racing. The ongoing search for sponsorship has been slow although with one or two notable successes. Steve Jordan Motorcycles are supporting us again which will be a great help. We are waiting to speak with S&B Commercials about our transport needs. They were a big help last season and we are hoping to work with them again in 2007. Teng Tools also look likely to be coming on board giving us a range of their excellent products which should make things a lot easier, both in the workshop, the paddock and the pit lane.

As a rider update, Matt Bond is now fully signed up although there has been some delay with Daniel Brill due to issues with his personal sponsors. We are still hoping to resolve the situation but are also keeping an eye out for another SuperStock 600 rider in case things don’t work out.

On the positive side we received the first of the new Suzuki GSXR1000K7 bikes for Matt. The official UK launch isn’t until the 24th February so we aren’t allowed to publish any pictures just yet. Needless to say we were very happy to have it early and have already run it in on the dyno and are busy sourcing parts for it. Steve Jordan Motorcycles have a Dyna Pro dyno that measured our stock Suzuki GSXR600K6 last year at 100 hp and in full race trim at 110 hp. The GSXR1000K7 makes 163 hp at the rear wheel out of the box!

Matt even came down to help unpack the bike and we can’t wait to get him out on track so he can start getting up to speed with it. Just need to find somewhere with some race bodywork now.

10/12/06 - 2007 Is Almost Upon Us

It appears that there is no longer any chance of a break in the off season simply because there isn’t an off season. The mad rush to get sponsorship before the date the contracts had to be in meant we simply ran out of time to put all our plans in to action. In the end we were only able to enter one SuperStock 1000 ride and one SuperStock 600 for Matt Bond and Daniel Brill, respectively.

The team would still like to have additional riders but without having secured the necessary sponsorship to fund them we are not willing to take the risk that we cannot afford to run them as once contracts are signed and entries are paid there is no way we could back out if the funds weren’t available. We will keep working on the sponsorship angle in the hope we may get a late entry for another rider, or two, and whilst there are a couple of companies that seem interested in working with us we still don’t have anything to announce at this time.

In the meantime Matt went to Jerez in Spain with Racedays.net back in November. Whilst he didn’t have a bike to ride he did get the opportunity of a couple of sessions on Steve Jordan’s GSXR1000K6 and Sarah Jordan’s heavily reworked SV700, an SV650 with a big bore kit, lightweight Dymag wheels and a GSXR600K4 front end. With no previous experience of a 1000cc machine Matt impressed everyone by being almost as quick as Steve on a circuit neither had seen before and only a couple of seconds off the pace of the British SuperStock Cup champion!

We are waiting to hear back about the next step with a major sponsor although it looks like their plans may be to build a working relationship in 2007 whilst we help them with some development ready for a much larger effort for the 2008 season. In the mean time we hope to hear soon how much support we can get from Suzuki and, more importantly, whether we will get the new GSXR1000K7 before they are released to the general public so that we can get some testing done before heading off to Valencia for the first round.

09/11/06 - Planning For 2007

Barely have we had time to get over the end of the season than it is time to start planning for next year. With Matt and Chris both turning 20 this year they will be too old to race SuperStock 600 in Europe in 2007. That means a move up to the 1000s which is quite a daunting task although one I’m sure they are both up to.

With plans to run two SuperStock 1000s and two SuperStock 600s it looks like 2007 is going to be a big year for MIST Suzuki Racing if everything goes to plan!

The search for sponsorship has been going on since August and various companies have shown an interest and a few more haven’t told us to get lost so fingers crossed for 2007.

Benefits of Sponsorship

• Largest all British motorcycle racing team in World SuperBike race paddock
• Competing at ten meetings across Europe and UK, over 750,000 race weekend attendees per season
• Two rounds in UK each year, approximately 180,000 race weekend attendees combined
• Brands Hatch round is regularly the largest one day sporting event in the UK
• Leading Suzuki Privateer team in 2006, awaiting confirmation of official support from Suzuki GB for 2007
• Considerable UK motorcycle press coverage during season across all main publications
• Widespread local press coverage in London and South East of England
• Significant internet presence across general and specialist motorcycle web sites
• Use of hospitality suite at Brands Hatch for World SuperBikes and other racing events
• Dedicated television coverage in UK and Europe (both digital and analogue) plus live internet feed video and live timing information
• Sponsor liveried team truck travelling 15,000 miles around UK and Europe during season
• Opportunity for competitions within one of the largest UK motorcycle magazine for sponsor liveried replica race bikes and other sponsor products

Team contracts with FG Sport are due at the end of the month so hopefully we’ll have a good idea of what we are doing by the middle of December.