VERMEULEN RACES TO 1ST PODIUM OF SEASON 13/7/2008 Team Suzuki Press Office - July 13. Chris Vermeulen raced his Rizla Suzuki GSV-R through the Sachsenring rain to earn a well-deserved podium in today's German Grand Prix. Vermeulen started from 14th on the grid and not only had to fight his way through the field, but was also hampered by heavy rain and the spray from the bikes in front, making visibility almost impossible. He made his way up to third place and challenged Valentino Rossi for second place by lap 10. He couldn't quite close the gap on Rossi and although he came under heavy pressure towards the end of the race from Alex de Angelis, Vermeulen showed tremendous skill in the appalling conditions to bring his bike home on the podium for the first time this season. Loris Capirossi produced a fantastically brave display today, competing not only with the conditions and the other riders but also the injured right arm that he has been suffering with all weekend. Starting from 13th, he made a solid first few laps before getting up into seventh on lap eight. He then got involved in a long battle with Randy de Puniet and was relegated down to eighth, but he never gave up the chase and overtook de Puniet on the very last corner to take seventh position. Today's race was watched by over 98,000 people at trackside who braved the rain to see Bridgestone dominate with the first four riders and eight of the top-10, using the Japanese manufacturer's tyres. The race was won by reigning World Champion Casey Stoner with current championship leader Valentino Rossi second. Rizla Suzuki MotoGP now makes a transatlantic trip to Laguna Seca in America for round 11 of the season, next weekend on Sunday July 20th. Chris Vermeulen: "I am very happy to be on the podium here in Germany. It was a really difficult race, as there was a lot more water than we had practiced in on this circuit. I have got to give full credit to Bridgestone as they pushed me to go for a much harder compound than I wanted and it definitely worked. I really want to thank my crew as well, and the Japanese Suzuki staff, as we didn't really have a lot of set-up in the rain but the bike worked really well. It wasn't perfect but it was more than capable of getting me home, so I am really pleased to have put it on the podium for them as well. Let's hope this is the start of a good run and now we are off to a track I enjoy a lot so hopefully we can move up to the top step there!" Loris Capirossi: "I am really happy for the whole team because Chris did a great job to finish third and I know it means a lot to everyone. I had to fight a lot with myself for the whole race and by half distance I had quite a lot of pain and was finding it very difficult to change direction, but for me the wet conditions helped with the injury. I had a battle with Randy and on the last corner I was able to overtake him and that was really good for me because I was still able to fight even with the injury and I know it will have healed more next time and I'll be a lot stronger." Paul Denning - Team Manager: "I said yesterday that we would do our best to salvage something from a difficult weekend, but the results today were well above our expectations. Certainly the weather levelled things up and helped us to an extent, but that doesn't take away from the tremendous performances of both riders. Chris has had some bad luck this season and certainly deserves his - and the team's - first podium of the year. This can only give him more confidence as we head to one of his favourite tracks next weekend. From 14th on the grid to challenging the top two by mid-race was an amazing job. We didn't quite have enough speed to live with the front two, but third is a great reward for Chris and all his guys who have worked so hard all year. "Loris's result on paper was not as good, but the effort shown to ride in the conditions out there and fight till the end was truly remarkable. Some riders can tend to make more of injuries than necessary and others sometimes try to hide them completely. Loris is certainly in the latter group and he was really hurting out there today, so again we have to thank him for his determination and effort, and for showing his never-say-die attitude. He will be fully fit by Brno and Loris and his guys are looking forward to that part of the season." Alice Motorrad Grand Prix Deutschland Race Classification: 1. Casey Stoner (Ducati) 47'30.057: 2. Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) +3.708: 3. Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP) +14.002: 4. Alex de Angelis (Honda) +14.124: 5. Andrea Dovizioso (Honda) +42.022. 7. Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP) +1'04.483. World Championship Classification: 1. Rossi 187: 2. Dani Pedrosa (Honda) 171: 3. Stoner 167: 4. Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) 114: 5. Colin Edwards (Yamaha) 98. 7. Chris Vermeulen (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP) 73. 11. Loris Capirossi (Rizla Suzuki MotoGP) 60.

SPIES SHOWS PROMISE ON MOTOGP DEBUT 20/6/2008 Team Suzuki Press Office - June 20. Ben Spies made his Rizla Suzuki MotoGP debut at Donington Park in England today and settled into his new environment quickly, showing a marked improvement in his times during today's two free practice sessions. Spies (1'30.766, 58 laps) is deputising for the injured Loris Capirossi at the British Grand Prix and the two-time AMA Superbike Champion spent the majority of the day learning the 4,023m English track. Spies knocked over a second off his lap-times between the morning and afternoon sessions as he finished the day in 17th place on the timesheets. He is confident of improving tomorrow and will be trying to move further up the standings.

Ben Spies does the double "again" at Miller Motorsports Park, UT SPIES WINS UTAH DOUBLE FOR SUZUKI 2/6/2008 Team Suzuki Press Office - June 2. Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing's Ben Spies celebrated the end of an excellent AMA Superbike double-header weekend at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah on Sunday with a double victory for the GSX-R1000. The defending AMA Superbike Champion won Sunday's 14-lap race, after having already won Saturday's race - and capturing pole position for the weekend. Sunday's result marks the two-time AMA Superbike Champion's 24th career AMA Superbike victory and increases his standings in the overall championship. Rockstar Makita Suzuki team mate Mat Mladin was right behind Spies off the start but he was overtaken over the course of the race and finished in fourth position and holds second place in the overall championship. Ben Spies: "After the first few laps I saw I had a gap on Mat, but I knew Jamie Hacking would be strong after doing so well yesterday. So I just tried to put in some good laps on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000. I tried to keep the gap the same and just bring home the win in the end. Everything was good this weekend and I've got to thank my crew for giving me such a good bike in the Suzuki. This weekend definitely helped us out in the whole championship points-chase. What we've been doing this year has worked so far. We've won six in a row and we're going for that elusive seven. That's a record I definitely want… so we're going for it at Road America. We'll see how it goes. We're definitely going to give it a go and just try to keep winning races." Mat Mladin: "I was looking forward to a good race with Ben today and my Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 was working fine. But I reckon yesterday's crash banged me up a little bit more than I thought. There's nothing seriously wrong or anything but I was pretty stiff and not 100 per cent. I'm not making any excuses; we just didn't get it done today. Now I'm just going to focus on rebuilding my confidence for next week's race at Road America where we won a race last year and have had some success in the past." AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers: 1. Ben Spies (Rockstar Makita Suzuki) 2. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 3. Neil Hodgson (Honda) 4. Mat Mladin (Rockstar Makita Suzuki) 5. Aaron Yates (Jordan Suzuki) 6. Miguel Duhamel (Honda) 7. Geoff May (Jordan Suzuki) 8. Jason Disalvo (Yamaha) 9. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha) 10. Chris Peris (Suzuki)

RAMON PODIUMS IN GERMAN MASTERS MX DEBUT 14/4/2008 Team Suzuki Press Office - April 14. Team Teka Suzuki's Steve Ramon raced to a podium position in his debut appearance in the German ADAC MX Masters at Furstlich Drehna at the weekend on his factory Suzuki RM-Z450. Due to race in selected rounds of the German international series throughout the 2008 season, the reigning World and Belgian MX1 champion gated well in moto one and led the race until Hungarian rider Kornel Nemeth charged into the lead for a couple of laps during the middle section of the 35-minute plus two lap moto. Able to regroup and refocus, Ramon then re-passed Nemeth and continued to hold him at bay, finally winning the race by 0.86 of a second. Moto two didn't start so well for Ramon as a crash left him at the back of the pack with plenty of work to do if he were to repeat moto one's result. Able to charge to third place by the race's end, he set some of his fastest laps during the latter half of the race as he closed in on Nemeth, who once more finished second, this time behind Max Nagl who took the race win. Finishing second overall with a 1-3 scorecard after losing out on a tie-breaker with Nagl, Ramon was satisfied with his performance even though the end result wasn't quite as good as it could have been. "I've never raced in a round of the ADAC series before so I wasn't sure what to expect before the weekend," he said. "The first race went well and I was pleased to win even though it was very close at the finish. I crashed straight after the start in moto two which cost me a lot of time. I put in a lot of effort and found some good lines to come through the pack well and although I didn't win, I'm satisfied with my performance."

Suzuki Wins Suzuka 8 hour after a 30 year dry-spell!! July 29, 2007 Team Suzuki Press Office - July 29, 2007. Team Yoshimura Suzuki's Yukio Kagayama and Kousuke Akiyoshi raced their GSX-R1000 to victory in the Suzuka 8 Hour World Endurance third round in Japan - the team's first Suzuka endurance win for almost 30 years. It was back in 1978 at the inaugural Suzuka 8 Hour race that the team tasted victory aboard their GS1000R. Kagayama led from the start from Honda's Ryuichi Kiyonari, Norick Abe (Yamaha) and Tady Okada (Honda), opening up a 15-second advantage by the one hour mark when Akiyoshi took over. The duo continued to increase their advantage lap by lap to take victory with 216 laps. World Championship leaders SERT with riders Vincent Philippe, Matthieu Lagrive and Julien Da Costa were the second best of the permanent teams finishing in seventh position with Yoshimura's second team of Atsushi Watanabe and Daisaku Sakai finishing just off the rostrum in fourth. Yukio Kagayama: "My strategy for my first stint was to pull away and I achieved this. My partner Akiyoshi is my long time friend and I know his potential very well. The Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 is awesome and the Bridgestone tyres were excellent. I would like to thank my staff and team, Yoshimura and Suzuki." Yohei Kato - Yoshimura Suzuki Team Manager: "We believed Kagayama and Akiyoshi could win! They made very good lap times all through the 216 laps. I told Yukio before start that I wanted him to holeshot and the top position in a first lap - and he achieved it. I'm very happy and thanks to my staff and Suzuki plus all our sponsors. We finally beat a very strong HRC team. I want to dedicate this victory to my late grandfather, Pops Yoshimura.” Dominique Meliand - SERT Team Manager: "We ran a very consistent pace and kept strong top10 spot all through the race. The most important thing is we got strong points and finished second fastest in the permanent teams." Vincent Philippe: "We only had two hours test at Suzuka before race but the track and temperature was quite different from today. Our pace was slower than we expected but we finished the race with only a small crash by Julian Da Costa without serious damage. Suzuka is very strange and difficult track but I love it - and I love the Suzuka 8 Hours.” Race Result: 1 Kagayama/Akiyoshi (YOSHIMURA SUZUKI) 216 Laps 2 Okada/ Checa (HRC) 216 Laps 3 Ito/ Teshima (TSR-HONDA) 215 Laps 4 Watanabe/ Sakai (YOSHIMURA SUZUKI) 215 Laps 5 Yamaguchi/ Camier (MORIWAKI HONDA) 212 Laps 6 Tokudome/ Kamata (MASKED RIDER HONDA DREAM) 211 Laps 7 Philippe/ Lagrive/ Da Costa (SERT SUZUKI) 210 Laps 8 Iwata/ Sugai/ Platacis (F.C.C.TSR HONDA) 210 Laps 9 Stauffer/ Abe (YAMAHA) 210 Laps 10 Takeda/ Tsuda (SAKURIA HONDA) 209 Laps

Save $$, Buy two-wheels !! Suzuki has the right idea with this ad. Did you know we sell over a dozen 2 wheel vehicles that get over 50 + mpg!! Did you know we have several vehicles that get over 100+ mpg!! That's right, if you ever thought of getting into two-wheels, now is the time. Not only are they incredibly practical in this high gas priced time, but they are a whole lot of fun too! You can go from simple and cute like the Honda Metropolitan, Ruckus, or Elite which are scooters, meaning they are fully automatic gas and go vehicles that get over 100+ mpg! Or if a freeway legal vehicle to take the miles off your gas guzzling car or truck is the idea, take a look at the cool Honda Big Ruckus with rear rack and backrest built into it, or the sleek sporty larger models like the Suzuki Burgman 400 and 650, and the Honda SilverWing. Anti-lock brakes are even a option of the larger style scooters to make you even safer! In the motorcycle world, Honda's stylish Rebel 250, or Suzuki's GZ250 get over 80 mpg and have all the cool cruiser style looks of their bigger brothers. If more power is wanted but you still want great gas mileage, look at the Suzuki SV650/S or V-Strom 650 who get over 50+ mpg. What about a rugged on and off road vehicle like the cool DR200SE, DRZ400S, or DR650SE, all of these streetbikes and scooter listed are 4-stroke, electric-start, low mainteniance vehicles! Bottom line, we sell fun, practical vehicles and can help you also get your license with information on local schools which provide the vehicles (which we supply) for you to practice on! Contact sales for details.

Japan sources say Concept "Stratosphere" Six Cylinder Katana to be built! Wow, is all we can say. Who out there wouldn't want a 180 hp, six cylinder, comfortable sportbike? [See photo gallery under Tokyo Motor Show for more pictures] Here is the first picture of the awesome new Suzuki just being introduced at the Toyko Motor Show right now!! The Stratosphere is powered by an 1100cc in-line, six-cylinder engine that uses a space saving design to achieve compactness on par with four-cylinder engines of similar displacement. The riding feel that results is said by Suzuki to be extraordinarily smooth yet brisk revving that is a world apart from four-cylinder engines. The front cowling and fuel tank are made from hammered aluminum while the radiator covers are made from Damascus steel to provide a unique texture to the Stratosphere’s unique design. Let's hope it gets a green light from management to turn it from exhibition concept model to full fledged production model![news just in from Asia which says Suzuki has confirmed that the Stratosphere will go in production as a 2009 model?]

All-New GSX650F from Suzuki wins big from Motorcycle Consumer News United Kingdom From MCN April, 2008... MCN overall verdict Suzuki's new budget and novice-friendly GSXF650F all-rounder proves that sometimes, brilliance is found in the most unlikely places. Although on face value merely a Bandit with a fairing the GSX650F's blend of real world performance, practicality, fun factor and value is pretty much unmatched anywhere. Engine MCN rating Owners' rating The Suzuki GSX650F's 16-valve, dohc four was all-new in the 2007 650 Bandit, is Euro3 clean, slick and responsive and, most pertinently, tuned for real-world versatility but with an exhilarating top end rush. Fuelling mods means it revs a little higher than the Bandit, although performance is unchanged. Peak power of 85bhp spread progressively over the rev range and decent enough grunt low down means this is a powerplant that's sufficiently willing and able whatever the gear or your ham-fistedness, yet still rewards with three-figure thrills. Ride and Handling MCN rating Owners' rating The Suzuki GSX650F's chassis is, for the most part, Bandit 650, too, being centred around the same, no frills, cost-conscious steel tube cradle and conventional forks. Yet in GSX-F guise it gets a more sophisticated shock for added sporting ability and subtly adjusted poise thanks to the fairing, new one-piece, rubber-mounted, lower bars plus new one-piece seat that all adds up to a riding position and balance that is both textbook sports-tourer and somehow impressively pure, too. Equipment MCN rating Owners' rating The key distinguishing feature of the Suzuki GSX650F is, of course, the fairing which at once manages to evoke and mimic GSX-R sportsbike style, provide decent protection from the elements and blend into the whole motorcycle as if the whole design was a clean sheet affair. But there are plenty of other goodies rare on a sub-£5K machine: span-adjustable brake and clutch levers; effective, widely-spaced mirrors; swanky GSX-R style sports instruments (a large analogue tacho flanked by the now usual LCD digital speedo, useful fuel gauge, plus assorted warning lights). Quality and Reliability MCN rating Owners' rating Usual Suzuki standard, which is no bad thing on a sub-5K bike. Everything gleams and is crisply assembled and from 20 yards you could easily mistake the GSX650F for a much more expensive machine. Mechanicals and cycle parts are all proven Bandit fare so there should be no reliability issues. Job done. Value MCN rating Owners' rating There's not other way of putting it: Suzuki's new GSX650F is astonishingly good value. Where Bandits and the like, though hugely worthy, are still conspicuously ˜budget bikes, the GSX650F somehow seems entirely classier and more valuable. Its no GSX-R, of course, but for under five big ones it's a steal!