said. “Australian rider Yanni Shaw (who won the
125 GP title in New Zealand this season) will be
my team-mate at Phillip Island.
“I have a wildcard entry for Phillip Island and
hopefully I can qualify for the racing proper at the
Grand Prix on the Sunday.
“I actually wasn’t too quick to jump at the
chance,” he shrugged. “This was because I felt the
mountain would be too high for me to climb. It’s
a pretty daunting task, you know? But a friend of
mine told me ‘don’t be an idiot, a chance like this
comes along only once in a lifetime’, so I gratefully
accepted.
“I didn’t want to get to age 60 or something and
look back at this time with any regret.
“This is a one-off ride for me. I could never afford
to race a full GP season. But it’s a dream come
true.
“I want to use this experience to learn as much as
I can and return to race a Yamaha R6 again in the
600cc class at the International Series at home in
December and the NZ SBK Champs in 2020.”
The MotoGP world championship series (which
includes the Moto3 and Moto2 categories) marks
the 16th round of 19 in Japan on October 20,
with the Chandler debut at round 17 in Australia,
while racing follows at Sepang, in Malaysia, on
November 3, before it all wraps up at Valencia, in
Spain, on November 17.
.........................................................................................
S
TINY SUZUKI STILL #1
uzuki’s GIXXER 150 remains the country’s top-selling road bike according to industry figures for
September. Based on the number of registrations for the month of September, Suzuki’s GSX150
range topped the sales charts with 21 bikes registered last month, 14 of which in the Auckland
region.
This continues a trend of strong sales for the LAMS market in New Zealand, with other top-selling
models including Harley-Davidson’s Street 500 (16), Royal Enfield’s Classic (12) and Interceptor 650 (11),
and KTM’s 390 Duke (11) also recording strong sales for the month.
Suzuki NZ’s motorcycle marketing manager, Simon Meade, was pleased with the result. “The little
GSX150 is cranking along”, he told KR.
As for the future of the top-selling pint-sized Suzuki, which falls awry of the new ABS laws that
start coming into force from next year, Meade was optimistic for the future of the line, “We are still
developing our ideas on our model line up in the future with the new ABS rules. We have plenty of
models with ABS that can be imported to replace the non-ABS versions.
108 KIWI RIDER