After a successful inaugural year racing in the European SuperStock
600 class at World SuperBikes in 2006 MIST Suzuki Racing began
preparations for 2007 early. Having agreed terms with two riders back
in August it was just a formality of signing the contracts in time
for the November deadline and looking for sponsorship.

With contracts signed on time and commitment from Suzuki and Ohlins
to deliver us the new for 2008 GSXR1000K8 before they were available
to the public along with Ohlins making sure we would have the first
25mm fork internal kits and TTX36 rear shocks we were all set. Or so
we thought…

With delays getting the GSXR1000K8 ready due to parts availability
plus the World SuperBike organisers opting to add an additional date
at Donington Park it meant things would be ready later than we
planned and the first round would be much earlier than we planned.
The GSXR600K8 had been available for a while but things were delayed
waiting for the rider to pay the first installment of the money they
owed the team before testing could begin.

The GSXR1000K8 arrived about six weeks before the first round but it
was several weeks before the suspension arrived and could be fitted.
With no bodywork available we had to heavily modify a fairing from an
earlier model bike and adapt a seat unit from our 600 from last
season. With less than two weeks remaining before the first round we
went testing albeit with the stock exhausts and our temporary fairing.

By some bizarre coincidence our 600 rider was there riding an R6.
Curiouser and curiouser. After confronting his Dad we were assured
that they had no other plans and that they had been having meetings
with sponsors and had one more planned in order to get everything
sorted. It was a surprise then to see the same rider appear in the
press announcement for the R6 Cup the following day. Mmmm, ten days
to go before the first round and no rider. Yikes!

Arrow and the UK importer, B & C Express, did a sterling job of
making us an exhaust and shipping it over in time for the first
round. Well, it arrived on the Tuesday and we were due to be at the
circuit on Thursday morning. The only bodywork we could get was from
Sharkskinz in the US and that arrived on Wednesday.

We arrived at Donington Park, unpacked the bike and headed off to
pick up the race awnings we had ordered. We managed to get the bike
prepared sufficiently to pass scrutineering later that afternoon and
then burnt the midnight oil to finish everything else off in
preparation for first practice on Friday morning! The GPR Steering
Damper was the very first in the country and arrived fresh off the
plane on Friday lunchtime.

Hard to believe that it was only 2005 that Matt won the MRO MiniTwins
Championship riding a Suzuki SV650 with 72 horse power. 2006 was his
first year on a 600 and now we were moving on to a 1000 with 170 plus
horse power. Matt has followed the same pattern ever since stepping
on to the SV650. Three crashes right at the start of the season while
he found his feet followed by a rapid improvement throughout the rest
of the season. It happened on the SV650, the GSXR600 and, sure
enough, the GSXR1000.

From the first test session through the first two rounds Matt racked
up the usual three crashes, including writing off both stock
exhausts, a rear wheel and, somehow, the rear shock! Not to mention
breaking some small bones in his wrist at Valencia yet still managing
to race and finish 23rd despite the pain!

Meanwhile the search for a replacement 600 rider was eventually
solved with the signing of South African Chris Leeson. Chris was
riding for the official Suzuki team at home and so despite a few
rounds where he was required to race for them he was ours for the
rest of the season. At the time of writing Chris just needs to finish
in the points at the last round in order to win the South African
SuperSport 600 Championship! For the rounds where Chris couldn’t make
it due to riding in South Africa we gave young Scottish rider Alex
Gault the opportunity to ride on the World stage.

Chris joined in time for the Assen round although the bike was still
brand new and in the crate on Wednesday morning having just been
delivered fresh from Suzuki. It was unpacked, had the road gear
removed and the race exhaust system fitted, was run in on the dyno
and had the suspension fitted by the end of the day. We arrived at
Assen on Thursday lunch time and proceeded to finish building the
bike that afternoon. Chris finished in 26th place around 48 hours later!

This may sound like everything was last minute and very disorganised
but that is far from the truth. Everything was meticulously planned
despite the lack of sponsorship and the large hole in the already
miniscule budget left by the withdrawal of the original 600 rider. We
really have to thank our sponsors for making the difference between
putting together a competitive team and not going racing at all.
Without Steve Jordan Motorcycles, S & B Commercials, Teng Tools, B &
C Express and numerous other companies there is no way we would have
been ready to compete yet alone be as competitive as we have proved
to be.

With the team manager making up the shortfall in the budget out of
his own pocket it is worth pointing out that MIST Suzuki Racing
operated on around one tenth of the budget of the top teams in the
SuperStock 1000 championship! The

The key lesson for the year is that not buying or budgeting for
certain things is a false economy. For example:

* We had an engine drop a valve at Brno shortly after we had spent
three days testing there whilst Matt was sitting in 12th place during
first qualifying. Without a spare Matt was forced to sit out the race
and the team was forced to purchase a completely new bike just to
make sure we had another engine for the next round two weeks later.

* With a brand new bike everyone struggled with suspension set up
over the first few rounds and our belated investment in bringing the
Andreani Group on board for track side suspension support proved
invaluable in speeding up our ability to find a good base setting.

* Not being able to test during some of the longer breaks during the
season really hurt us in terms as getting back up to speed at the
next round. It would take the first day for the riders to get back in
the swing of things which meant other riders were already ahead when
we knew they weren’t as good as Matt or didn’t have as good a package
behind them.

Circuit: Donington Park
Matt Bond: 28

Circuit: Valencia
Matt Bond: 23

Circuit: Assen
Matt Bond: 33
Chris Leeson: 26

Circuit: Monza
Matt Bond: 26
Chris Leeson: 18

Circuit:Silverstone
Matt Bond: 24
Chris Leeson: Cancelled due to bad weather

Circuit: Misano Adriatico
Matt Bond: 24
Chris Leeson: 22

Circuit: Brno
Matt Bond: DNS
Chris Leeson: 13

Circuit: Brands Hatch
Matt Bond: 20
Alex Gault: 14/18*

Circuit: Lausitz
Matt Bond: 26
Chris Leeson: DNF

Circuit: Vallelunga
Matt Bond: 22

Circuit: Magny Cours
Matt Bond: 21
Chris Leeson: 15

* Cancelled race from Silverstone held at the Brands Hatch meeting to
the benefit of stand in rider Alex Gault.

Now that the season is over and we can look back the consensus of
opinion is that we did remarkably well given the problems we had.
Matt moving from a 120 horse power bike to a 175 horse power bike was
always going to be a big jump and the difficulties at being let down
by our other rider really hurt us in both focus and budget.

We also suffered a great deal of bad luck including the engine blow
up, electrical problems and a couple of tyres that proved to be very
different to others of the same weekend which cost us a lot of
development and set up time. I am confident that without some of
these incidents Matt would have been a regular points scorer towards
the end of the season but that’s racing.

The ups and downs of racing were demonstrated perfectly at the last
round at Magny Cours. Chris was inside the top ten by the first
corner and was then forced off the track and in to last place by the
second turn. He then fought back putting in the same lap times as the
podium finishers to finish in 15th place by the end of the race.
Thoughts of what might have been are all very well but but our aim is
to bring on young riders and watching Chris and Matt improve over the
season has made it all worth while.

Perhaps more importantly, both FG Sport (the organisers behind the
World SuperBike Championship) and other teams and riders were
impressed with our professionalism, machine performance and overall
impact as the largest British team in the whole paddock.

This bodes well for 2008 where we have had enquiries from riders
capable of being championship contenders who believe we have what it
takes to help them win races plus bike and manufacturers of
performance parts who are looking to get involved with the team. We
are also looking to focus on the SuperStock 1000 class which would
allow us to run a larger team with the resources available to us.

An official announcement of our 2008 plans will be coming shortly.
Watch this space…