CycleOnline.com.au speaks to the brand's general manager about its road race activities.
Suzuki Motorcycles’ Team Suzuki outfit has been a mainstay of Australian road racing for many years. Their distinct presence, including a professional, uniform image, is one of the most recognisable sights in the racetrack paddock.
CycleOnline.com.au spoke to Suzuki Motorcycles’ general manger Perry Morison about the brand’s local racing program, pathways to international careers, what they look for in a rider and why more brands should be involved in road racing at the top local level.
Suzuki is obviously a long time supporter of motorcycle racing in Australia. In particular, we’re focusing here on road racing, and the Australian Superbike Championship. From my perspective, from being around the sport for five or six years, the Suzuki presence is one of the most recognised in the paddock. How important is the racing program to the overall strength of the brand?
Our Superbike racing program, and our road race program in general, is really important to not only developing and maintaining Suzuki’s brand but also returning to the company sales activity. As you know we do have a strong presence, and we’ve remained consistently loyal to the Australian Superbike Championship, starting back from well before I joined the company in 1997, and I think we’ve created a pretty strong list of results, and a strong legacy in terms of championship success and performance on the GSX-R brand.
The GSX-R range is our flagship range of models, we’re just celebrating now the production of our one-millionth GSX-R, starting back in 1985, so Suzuki has a phenomenal heritage in terms of building sports bikes and it’s obviously a benefit to be able to go and campaign those bikes in motorcycle sport and just keep proving to the marketplace how good they are.
Continuing on that vein, Suzuki has a successful road racing program at an international level, which, from my point of is emulated through the national level with the consistency through the look and feel, and overall message. How much input does Suzuki have from that international level in what Australia does on a national scale?
Our factory, historically, is very focused on motorcycle sport in competition, it has been from the beginning. They do that not only at the international level but at the domestic level because we think it’s important to be supporting racers at every level, right down to state and club-level racing.
So we’re not the largest manufacturer, we’re one of the largest, and our factory takes a strong interest in what all of the major distributors are doing around the world. We always look at our domestic racing programs as an opportunity to create a pathway for our racers for international careers. Sometimes that works well, sometimes it doesn’t. But that’s always the focus of what we do.
As well as that consistency between the programs at those levels, you mentioned there is a strong level of loyalty within Suzuki’s brand. From my view that’s also reflected in your rider lineup, for example, Shawn Giles has been with the company for a long time, Josh Waters was with you for a long time, and you opened a lot of doors for Josh to try things overseas. Does Suzuki place a lot of emphasis on building long-term relationships with riders?
We absolutely do. Historically as you can see from our performance, we choose our riders very carefully, we always choose our riders with the view that if they’ve got international racing aspirations and most top-quality racers in Australia have those aspirations, then we choose them with a view to create a career pathway for them. There’s always a limited number of seats, but as much as we’re focused on success here in Australia, we always have one eye on the international scene. That’s why we work closely with our counterparts at the factory.
We do everything we can to assist with creating opportunities. You can see that with what we did with Josh, with Shawn in the Suzuka 8 Hour on the mighty Hayabusa. We do see that as really important. Australian racers have an incredible record of wanting to go overseas and being successful.
If we’re investing in a rider, we want to do it from a long-term perspective. Once we’ve enjoyed some success over here then if there are ambitions to go overseas then the next step for us is to try to fulfil those ambitions and keep that rider within the Suzuki family. I think we’ve developed a strong reputation for achieving that.
With Josh Waters’ departure to British Superbikes, Wayne Maxwell was the next front-runner, and he’s with the team for this season. He’s a major signing for brand as he’s obviously a strong contender and has been a runner-up on a number of occasions. In addition to what he’s able to do on track, I believe he has a very strong understanding of how the industry works, and has a mindset for the business and marketing side of things. Is this a valuable asset as well for a rider to have?
Extremely. Wayne’s a fantastic example that in the current climate, it’s not good enough just to be a motorcycle racer. You need to be able to support the company that’s supporting you, you need to be able to promote the brand that you’re racing, and you need to be able to create a strong following in the marketplace. Not just in the motorcycle marketplace, but in the wider community, to be successful.
Part of that is about generating sponsorship outside the industry, to assist in covering the expenses of going racing. Commercially, Wayne’s very switched on. He understands the importance of supporting and endorsing the brand he’s with. It’s a great combination because he’s obviously so successful and so good on the motorcycle. It’s very important that our riders share in that responsibility.
Suzuki is one of two official factory teams in the Australian Superbike Championship. Do you think the sport would benefit from involvement from other manufacturers at the same factory level? What benefits would you say to them are associated with having a factory presence at race meetings?
Firstly, it’s not my role to tell others within the industry how to run their businesses. We all do that as we see fit. Without a doubt, the sport’s healthier when you have a greater level of competition. And so for us we would always welcome the other manufacturers to be involved, particularly at the Superbike level.
From our perspective the ASBK is the only championship that has the ability to propel domestic riders to international careers or create a successful road racing career here in Australia. We’d always encourage more brands and more people to be involved. Having said that, racing requires a level of commitment that from time to time is difficult for everyone to be able to participate in at that level.
I think that we’ve got a really good balance in terms of regulations and the cost of going Superbike racing, and we can see that because we’ve got guys like Ben Henry and Chas Hern, who are just doing a fantastic job running their own Superbike programs this year. They’re out there and attracting their own sponsorship, and I’m enormously impressed with the performance of guys like that.
So it’s possible to go and build competitive Superbikes at a competitive price, and go and be successful at a racetrack. But ultimately it’s up to each individual brand and distributor as to whether they want to do that. Sometimes we have a lot of brands on the racetrack together, sometimes we don’t. Ultimately the competition is a good thing, we want to go out there and do our best against the strongest possible field.