SPRUCED UP. This year's South African motorcycle championship will be sponsored by Monster Energy Drinks. Picture: Motorpics.
The announcement was made in Johannesburg late last week.
“This is great news as national championship motorcycle racing has been without a sponsor for too many years,” said Stephen Watson, executive director of GAS Sports, the organisation that will promote and manage the motorcycle-only tour.
“Sponsors are the life blood of any sport and we are delighted to announce such a well-known supporter of adventure sports as the naming rights sponsor of the all-new Monster Energy SuperGP Trophy for 2014.
“Having such a committed and enthusiastic commercial partner will enable us to build and promote this exciting new national championship motorcycling format,” he added.
Monster Energy’s Garan Reck is equally upbeat about the new partnership. “The combination of an exciting new era for national championship motorcycle racing and a professional promoter like GAS Sports was an irresistible opportunity for us to get involved.
“We see this new partnership as a great fit for us and we will be putting our full weight behind the Monster Energy SuperGP Champions Trophy in 2014,” he added.
The opening round will take place at Phakisa Freeway in the Free State on March 15 and 16, with rounds being run monthly thereafter.
The series will culminate in October with the final round for the premier categories being run as support races in the planned SA round of the FIM World Superbike Championship.
Race weekends will be run along similar lines to the World Superbike Championship with SuperGP, a unique South African category for 1 000 cc entry-level machines with limited modifications being the headline category.
The support categories will include Super600, a new entry level evo category; Super600, which is equivalent to the current Supersport category for modified machines; Superbikes, the existing category for modified 1 000 cc machines; SuperMasters, for SuperGP riders aged over 35 on 1 000 cc bikes complying with both the Superbikes and SuperGP technical regulations; and SuperTwins, which will cater for 1 000 to 1 200 cc twin-cylinder modified machines.
All categories will enjoy national championship status except for SuperTwins, which will be a national challenge series.
