‘Our loyal customers help us police it’
● ‘We do it all in-house. It’s our passion’
Their hard plastic protectors have graced the bikes of World Superbike champions, Moto2 supremos and BSB’s best, all the way down to the most crash-happy club race regulars – and it all started back in 2007 thanks to Barnet-born engineer Graham Banks’ (the GB in GBRacing) love of trackdays.
However, in recent times, the Hertfordshire-based firm has endured its fair share of counterfeiter chaos, as Graham’s son, Tim Banks, explains: “The counterfeiters are literally copying everything we produce – our design with our logo on, even our packaging and instructions! It’s actually very hard for a buyer to be able to tell what’s genuine and what’s not. But the counterfeiters are using cheaper nylon to our patented blend that we’ve developed, and as such the protectors just aren’t tough enough. Our product is essentially designed to protect expensive engine casings and ultimately prevent on-track oil spills, but the counterfeit protectors aren’t good enough to do either of those things.
“It’s incredibly frustrating as there’s so much that goes into the development of our products; hours and hours of R&D using feedback from the world’s top teams, plus we do all our own tooling and production in-house at our factory in Baldock. It’s our passion. We’re working hard to trademark everything, but even when we do, it’s still not enough to tackle to problem because of the copyright laws in China. But luckily, we do have a very loyal customer base who help us police the issue, tipping us off about listings and spreading the word on forums.”