Matt Bond - Mist Suzuki 2009

The British Superbike team Mist Suzuki, have been forced to pull-out of the remainder of the 2009 championship due to lack of funds.

Team boss Mike Edwards said;

“Everyone is extremely disappointed but for a new team to the Superbike class I think we have done well despite being seriously hampered by the non-delivery of many essential parts, especially as we are almost unique amongst the privateer teams in that we chose to develop a new bike from scratch.

We are privately funded and staffed entirely by volunteers although some people put in more hours with the team than doing their full time jobs. We had a reasonable budget to complete the season but with so much bad luck we have struggled to get this far. Having a bike written off due to no fault of our own before it had managed to complete a single lap of it’s first race was really hard and it took us several rounds to bounce back.

As it is we are already making plans and looking forward to the 2010 Superbike season and would love to put in another appearance before the end of the year if it was possible.”

The team only switched from the European Superstock class to the British Superbike series four-weeks before the season began, despite not having secured a crucial title sponsor.  They team managed to get the bike prepared for the opening round at Brands Hatch with an hour to spare before the start.

Matt Bond was the initial rider with the team and had a disastrous first round through no fault of his own.  Still taking things slowly, Matt had positioned himself well at the end of the first lap when Tom Tunstall came off his bike, he landed on the ground but his bike kept going, directly across the track in front of an oblivious Bond.  The Suzuki rider could do nothing to stop the inevitable and the GSXR1000K9, scattered it’s precious parts around the circuit.  Matt surprised everyone by retiring  before round seven of the championship due to work pressure, leaving the team with no rider to complete the Mallory Park round.

The team returned for the Brands Hatch triple header with Steve Mercer on their Suzuki, completing only 3 laps in the first race before retiring and no start in the following two races.