With five races in five countries and such a superb rider line-up what more could you want.!

It all kicks off at Donington Park on May 6th/7th, with a two team entry of Hugh Brasher/Mike Dickinson plus Peter Linden and Ian Simpson.

Then off to Anneau du Rhin on the German/French border for our first crack at this German Championship race and our first visit to that circuit.

Spa will then follow in July, Imola in August and Aragon again in October.

The plan is to keep the two teams fixed all year.

The challenge with the bikes continues; with the balance between reliability and power being tilted yet further in the direction of output. We test at Aragon next month, so we will see then if we have it right !!

Principal sponsors this year remain unchanged and our continued gratitude goes to Hugh Brasher, Marchant Engineering ( Lee and Ray), Continental Tyres, in the shape of Graham Matcham and of course, the legendary Maurice Waldock.

Right now we are recruiting in the workshop for a few extra hands to spread the load and experience in what will surely be another great season.!!

Finally, hearty congratulations to Ian Simpson for cleaning up in the South Aftrican TT revival series this year. Well done from us all.

Today we’ve added a few more items to our For Sale page, including a whole load of Ohlins parts.
More to come in the next few days.

RB

Happy New Year to all our team and sponsors.

Very soon we shall be in position to announce the race dates and team line-up, plus main sponsors and the general plan…watch this space for further news.

We can hardly wait for the first test !

In the meantime, please have a quick look at the ‘for sale’ page on this website, which we are updating with a whole range of ‘workshop clearout’ items over the next few days – Kawasaki, P&M and Suzuki.

Greg Fastré and Richard Hubin led from the early stages, only interrupted once, for a short time, by Mertens and Simpson, to score their second win of the 2016 series.

Sweatshop Phase One entered two teams: Mertens/Simpson on bike no 1, and Brasher/Lindén on the no 4 bike.
The no 1 bike retired whilst 2nd with 28 minutes of the four hour race remaining -having fought off challenges from the whole field and tucked in about 100 seconds behind Force at the head.

A rider error, passing under a yellow flag, resulting in a “drive through” penalty did not help the team’s progress!

The no 4 bike had a steady trouble free run to fourth position.

Qualifying was topped by the new Edge Racing Team (formerly Monex Europe) with Sweatshop no 1 in second, Force in third and Sweatshop no 4 in fourth.

The surprise of the meeting was a second team bike no 50 of Team Force, raced by none other than Mathieu Lagrive and Bruno Lebihan! Regrettable they retired with machine failure in the early stages, as did Team Edge Racing.

Neate no 17/19 were second, Taurus were third, Alf was fifth and Roadrunner sixth.

Congratulations to all on a good meeting.

Season Summary:

During the season it was a hard slog keeping the Suzuki engines together, but it was worth it. With six wins, and a new Oschersleben race and lap record it proved there was still life in the old dogs!

Winter development will centre upon engines this time, plus beefing up the stock of rolling chassis spares to give more depth. And also of course the new bike… more on that later!

Personnel wise, it was another supreme effort by the core of this fantastic team –  some of the challenges thrown at it seemed insurmountable at the time, but all were overcome.
I will never forget nursing that leaking and cracked P&M Suzuki on to its Mettet win, nor for that matter, Ian pushing over the line at Osch for that one!

Peter Lindén, once again the backbone of the team, has performed on and off track superbly, and has been central to all six wins. It’s been our pleasure to have him in the team. Congratulations to Hugh Brasher, Mike Dickinson, Ian Simpson and Stéphane Mertens, who have all raced with us this season and are now well established team members as well as friends.

And finally, a big thank you to our sponsors; the main men being Hugh Brasher, Ray and Lee Marchant, Graham Matcham and Maurice Waldock. Without you all it just would not have been possible – you have brought a lot of people a lot of pleasure.

The teams forced an FIM meeting at Aragon, where a carefully scripted back fitting exercise was delivered by the FIM.
In the absence of ECS rules, the FIM representative carefully selected extracts from the EWC non-permanent team rules (despite the teams concerned doing all races) to come to the bizarre conclusion that any team could adopt any number and even select which of its bikes could carry the points!
It fooled nobody, and even the ECS, after admitting their error, will consider changing the rules for next year. Apparently, Force and Roadrunner simply turned their backs and exited from the circus.
Hugh Brasher established that the teams had no route of appeal.