Hello and welcome to the first edition of Cycle Central, our weekly feature that we’ll piece together in a bid to share the latest in the sport from behind the scenes. Like most things on CycleOnline, it’ll be based around Australian racing and of course our international Aussies.

We officially re-launched CycleOnline on Monday and are in for a big year with the site, coming in as a partner site to MotoOnline.com.au – our well established dirt bike site that was initially launched in 2009. Many will remember MotoOnline was initially both dirt and road, before we split them mid-2011.

Since then CycleOnline has been lacking in a lot of ways, largely due to resources and general time constraints, however for 2013 we’re going ‘all in’ and hope to bring you a whole new perspective on racing from an Australian angle online.

In my opinion, although racing is struggling to gain traction to an extent domestically and in most places around the world, it’s up to us as media to provide a platform for teams to demonstrate their worth, which will eventually result in growth for all categories.

Without us providing an outlet for racing to be showcased on a national level, there really isn’t any chance for the sport to move forward in the years to come. It’s about profiling the riders and teams, displaying how professional the equipment is and also making fans aware of the great racing we do have right here in our own back yard. AMCN does this very well in magazine form, but online the sport definitely needs a larger presence within Australia.

One of the first things we required to actually commit to this program is a budget to travel to events and get the content, which is looks like we have, and hopefully we can make progress to the point that CycleOnline will be a well known brand just like MotoOnline. Either way, it’s going to be a lot of fun along the way in 2013!

After winning last year's ASBK title with Josh Waters, Team Suzuki is yet to announce its 2013 plans. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

During December we were lucky enough to test the Team Honda Racing CBR1000RR Superbike of Wayne Maxwell, which he rode to second in the series last year, as well as the Hepburn Motorsports BMW S 1000 RR of Glenn Allerton.

By the way, new Hepburn Motorsports BMW rider Ben Nicolson was on hand during the test and he’s adapting swiftly to the BMW that he’ll ride in Prostock during 2013. It’s suggested that Linden Magee will step up to a Superbike seat alongside Allerton for this year.

We also got our hands on the Yamaha Racing Team YZF-R1 of Kevin Curtain fresh from wrapping up another FX-Superbike title, along with his YZF-R6 FX600 series winner. On top of that, we rode Cru Halliday’s Formula Oz championship bike and the trick little Yamaha YZ450GP.

All of those tests will be coming up on the site in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for them to give you an insight toward the quality bikes racing locally throughout the year.

Provisional calendars have been released for both the Australian Superbike Championship and Australian FX-Superbike Championship, however the two clashes in there for the fifth year straight are disappointing and that’s the very topic I wrote about in my AMCN ‘The Go’ column that was released today. Check that out for more.

The frightening question in the sport right now is, what’s happening with Team Suzuki and their Australian Superbike Championship program? It’s no secret that their budget has been finalised ultra late (and may not even be finalised as we speak), leaving the most sought after seats in Australia unsigned at this point.

I don’t doubt that Suzuki will go racing once again, well at least we hope so because that company is the major backbone in the ASBK series. Without them, well, we don’t even want to consider that right now. If they do go racing, expect Brodie Waters to step up to the Superbike fulltime and the smart money would go toward Wayne Maxwell to replace Josh Waters.

Team Honda Racing is well confirmed with Jamie Stauffer to be joined by Josh Hook, with Maxwell released at the end of 2012. Maxwell has also been linked to the Yamaha Racing Team in FX, however they today confirmed Kevin Curtain and Rick Olson for next season in their lead Ipone-sponsored team.

Kevin Curtain will focus on the R1 only in 2013, but he'll still ride the R6 as a World Supersport wildcard at Phillip Island. Image: Keith Muir.

With Mike Jones vacating his YRT seat in the Yamalube-backed side of the team, the blue camp need a replacement rider alongside Halliday, who is expected to return for his second season. Team owner John Redding has mentioned that he’d like to see Halliday on a 600 (make sense, because Curtain is now riding Formula Oz), but it’s unclear who the second rider could be – perhaps Maxwell or Waters if Suzuki waits too long.

Don’t forget Troy Herfoss is back in Australia and is in need of a ride, because with the 2010 Australian Supersport title and third in the 2011 ASBK series to his credit, he’s shown he can do battle with the best of them. Could he be a potential candidate for one of these seats, despite openly stating that he’s not actively searching for a ride?

The Trinder Racing team will likely be back in FX with Aprilia again, marking another couple of seats that deserve to be filled by quality riders. At the final FX round they had Broc Parkes and Pat Medcalf at the helm, but no word yet has been released on 2013.

It’s a quiet time in the sport for the most part at the moment as the final pieces of the puzzle are sorted, so stay tuned for any developments we source over the coming weeks. With Phillip Island’s World Superbike round right around the corner, teams have to hurry in order to begin their minimal pre-season testing programs.

What has been busy lately are various dirt tracks of Australia as some of our best road racers gear up for the Troy Bayliss Classic in Taree. More on that next week, but there’s certain to be fireworks as a heap of all-star riders do battle in the dirt aboard an assortment of rides.

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