Tony Rees, although he will again face a stern challenge from arch rival Sloan Frost, of Wellington, and others such as Taupo’ s Scotty Moir and Glen Eden’ s Daniel Mettam. Frost won the 2015 Suzuki Series ahead of Rees, with Liechtenstein rider Horst Saiger, the early leader in the series, slipping down to eventually settle for third overall. The year before that, in December 2014, it was a classic down-to-the-wire battle between Saiger and Moir. In the end, Saiger won the series by just three points from the hard-charging Moir. This year it’ s again anybody’ s guess as to who will dominate the series or, perhaps even more importantly, who will win the Boxing Day finale and its signature Robert Holden feature race. In addition to former series winners Rees, Frost and Saiger, former series runners-up Moir and Mettam, along with Manukau’ s Toby Summers and New Plymouth’ s Hayden Fitzgerald, are also sure to be contenders, not to mention all the other nationallyranked Kiwis, while British world champion sidecar

pairing Tim Reeves and Mark Wilkes will obviously again add international sparkle to the sidecar class. Also in the starting line-up this time around will be Irish former Isle of Man race winner Lee Johnston and Isle of Man native Connor Cummins, also a winner at the Isle of Man and the British Superbike Championships as well.“ The series’ growing popularity has created a bit of a headache for me again this year,” said Willacy.“ The sidecar class numbers have gone ballistic this year, with three teams entered from Australia and seven from Europe.“ It’ s a tough position to be in, with this year’ s entry list the largest we’ ve had in the nine years since the competition began( in 2008). The popularity is global, particularly for the Cemetery Circuit final round, and I guess that means we’ ve been doing something right.“ We make it very easy for people to enter and race and the spectators love being so close to the action too.”

Rod Price preps the new team bike

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