Racing to Triumph ...........................
We revisit the last 30 years of the brand’s winning ways
Few manufacturers can hold a candle to Triumph’s array of racing successes that span across more than a century of competition – at home, abroad, and on the toughest road races known to mankind. But perhaps it’s achievements in the last 30 years that are the most impressive, as Tim discovered at the Triumph Factory Visitor Experience.
Since the firm’s inauguration way back in 1902, a lot of water has passed under the bridge and countless trophies have been won by Triumph race bikes of all types and sizes. But perhaps some of its greatest endeavours have come in the last three decades, following the brand’s rebirth in Hinckley at the hands of John Bloor.
Triumph rose from the ashes once more, not just in the showrooms, but also out on the racetracks, too. With such a pedigree, it’s probably no surprise that even in its infancy the manufacturer wasted no time in getting back into motorcycle competition. One of the Hinckley factory’s first production models was the 900cc Speed Triple that was quick to win favour with riders on the roads, and also proved a great proposition for a one-make race series to support the British superbike championship of that era. In 1994, the Triumph Speed Triple challenge was born and would run for the following two years, forming an integral part of Triumph’s return to racing on a national level.
It was a smart way to reaffirm the brand’s presence, and it was a huge success with riders such as Ron Haslam, Mike Edwards, Dave Jefferies, John Reynolds, James Haydon and a host of other top names racing these mildly tweaked naked bikes at Donington GP and the British championship.
On face value, that was where Triumph’s return to racing began and ended, but a lot was going on behind the scenes. In 2002, on Triumph’s 100-year anniversary, it unveiled a new four-cylinder Daytona 600 Supersport machine that was to hit the showrooms and the racetrack the start of that next season.
The Daytona 600 was to see Triumph’s real return to racing, and this mission was led by Jack Valentine with his ValMoto team. They hit the ground running with top 10 results
straight away in British Supersport – but it wasn’t without troubles, and Jack had work to do to get these bikes right at the sharp end.
Within two years, Valmoto put Triumph back to the top of the timesheets, securing British Supersport wins with Craig Jones and a TT victory with Bruce Anstey. It was a memorable moment for the British brand that flew the flag for the UK, quite literally, on its iconic, bright yellow race bikes. In under 15 years, the resurgence of Triumph at the hands of Bloor’s Hinkley factory had delivered on track in an emphatic style, adding to the marque’s successful annals of time.
There’s no two ways about it. The Daytona 600 had proved a huge success for Triumph, but the big question for me with that model is why did Triumph decide to go with a four-cylinder machine when it is famed for the triple? Perhaps the answer lies in the thinking of the time, which saw a supersport market dominated by in-line fours. In production bike racing (British and World Superbikes), the prominent engine format of the day was four cylinders, so building anything different and hoping to be competitive might have been considered more than a bit ambitious.
With this in mind, Triumph had to introduce something that was going to be successful in a way that they could trust the investment, and that was to go in the ‘proven’ direction. Triumph is an independent business, 100% privately owned, and although a global brand which was manufacturing volumes of 60,000 to 70,000 bikes a year at the time, it was still a much smaller operation compared to most of its rivals in terms of manufacturing and sales per year.
Honda, who was very much a market leader at the time (and still is), had its investment behind the four-cylinder machines, so I can completely understand why Triumph initially went in that direction; it needed to know it was
going to work and that the bikes were going to sell. And it did.
The Daytona 600 put Triumph back in the game, up at the pointy end, but that didn’t mean the brand was set to get complacent. The Daytona was produced between 2003 and 2005, and in its latter form even saw the introduction of a 650cc version, intended to bridge the gap in performance between the Daytona and its mainly Japanese rivals.
The problem was that a 650cc in-line four wasn’t eligible to race in the 600cc Supersport class. The choice was to either develop the four-cylinder motor a whole lot more, or pick a wholly different direction. As we know now, Triumph decided to go its own way and develop a new triple-cylinder sportsbike that would carve a name like no other in the Hinkley outfit’s racing heritage.
As time went on, Triumph’s reputation and sales grew to a point whereby the ability to do something different became much more realistic. It wasn’t a shot in the dark; it was a very considered decision, and Triumph understood the advantages and potential of going to the triple-cylinder engine with a legitimately larger capacity.
There was a groundswell of opinion within Triumph that the future would lay with three cylinders because of the inherent strengths; the balance of weight versus performance and the way that torque is delivered was something to relish. And secondly, differentiation from everything else on the market.
What grew from this bold decision is arguably the most successful Supersport bike in recent years. In 2006, the Daytona 675 triple was launched, and this was developed with strong influence directly from the racing world. It’s probably for that reason that the new machine hit the market running, soon proving to be a favourite on the roads and the racetrack. It was a winning machine in more ways than one, with Superstock 600 and Supersport wins the world over.
In the UK, the 675 became a very popular choice of race bike at club and national level, with a pure Daytona 675 series also being formed and called the Triumph Triple Challenge, providing a platform for young talent just as the Speed Triple Challenge had some 20 years earlier.
Success was plentiful, and it didn’t take long for Triumph to claim its first title with this machine, at the hands of Aussie Glen
Richards, who lifted the British Supersport championship trophy in 2008 with the MAP Embassy racing team – Triumph’s first championship win of the Hinckley era. Glen was the first, but not the last, to capitalise on the 675’s brilliance.
The first revision of the Daytona 675 occurred in 2012, which featured a more compact and powerful triple-cylinder motor due to a shorter stroke ratio. The bike was made smaller and lighter, it had a narrower frame, and featured a bigger airbox, a new swingarm, a slipper clutch and lighter wheels – to name a few of the alterations. It was a brilliant step forward for Triumph, and over the next few years it was extremely successful in its racing endeavours.
Perhaps 2014 was the factory’s most spectacular season, with a trio of significant victories. Gary Johnson won the Supersport race at the Isle of Man TT (Triumph’s first win there since Bruce Anstey in 2004), Danny Eslick was the first man to win on a Triumph at the Daytona 200 since Gary Nixon’s success in 1967, and Billy McConnell won the British Supersport Championship on his Smiths Racing Triumph, too. Whichever way you look at it, that was a hell of a season.
Luke Stapleford backed things up the following year by lifting the Supersport championship once again for Triumph, racing on the Daytona 675s he bought from Smiths Racing in 2014 because he knew the bikes were proven and capable.
Sadly, the production of the Daytona 675 finished in 2016, but the icon wasn’t done with winning. Three years after the model’s demise, Peter Hickman went on to win the 2019 Isle of Man TT Supersport race on his Smiths Racing/Trooper Triumph, an unexpected achievement considering he
WHICHEVER WAY YOU LOOK AT IT, THAT WAS A HELL OF A SEASON.
was taking on next-generation machinery with a now deceased model.
Over the course of a decade in production, the Daytona had more than proven its worth, winning fans and fame the world over... so why on earth did production end? The simple answer is a huge dive in sales of fully faired, middleweight sportsbikes, and subsequently the brilliant Daytona 675 was pulled off the production line. This seemed to be mirrored across all manufacturers and unfortunately the Supersport racing scene hit an all-time low. The decline of this market saw an increase in the sales of naked middleweight bikes, which had been growing nicely since the late 1990s, and the new Triumph Street Triple became the king of the naked class.
This meant the development of the 675 engine was able to continue since the Street Triple used the same motor, and the focus of these sales picked up the torch from the Daytona. This bike’s success eventually lead to the evolution of the Street Triple 765 RS.
Of course, the hope was always there that Triumph would release a Daytona 765, but business acumen took precedence over low-volume demands for such a product; the naked market was booming, and that’s where the emphasis was to remain... or so we all thought.
The exciting new Street Triple 765 RS soon caught the attention of Dorna, that had been seeking to enhance the Moto2 class since the Honda CBR 600 engine was no longer in production (for the same reason as the Triumph Daytona 675). Dorna was looking for relevance and a way to maintain its middleweight Moto2 class as the perfect training camp for MotoGP.
Moto2 had become stale in terms of developments, unlike MotoGP, which is constantly and rapidly developing with more power and tech, which makes for an even bigger step up from middle category.
The newly developed 765 motors offered the perfect solution to Dorna’s requirements, and so it approached Triumph. Soon after a Moto2 mule was created to help evolve the 765 motor and test it in a befitting chassis, with the control ECU that would govern the series. Popular with the riders, teams and Dorna, Triumph was formally approved as the championship’s solus engine provider.
Triumph was officially back in the Grand Prix paddock, through a path that none could have predicted – or expected to prove so successful.
Even in the very early days of development and test riding, Moto2 riders were able to match previous Moto2 lap records. The 2020 championship produced seven different Moto2 Grand Prix winners and 11 outright circuit lap records were set, which smashed the benchmarks already redefined by Triumph 765cc triple power during 2019.
Dorna and Triumph have nailed it with the Moto2 class, and it’s clear the riders are now much better prepared for promotion to the premier class.
The other spin-off from the Street Triple RS 765 engine was the unexpected release of the limited edition Daytona 765 we’d all been calling for. Carbon-clad with smart tech, less weight and more power than any Daytona that had come before it, the end result was tantalising, to say the least.
The problem was there was no eligible class to race it in, with the other small issue being the limited production run of just 1530 bikes for the entire world selling out almost as soon as it was announced.
But where there’s a will there’s a way, and Triumph is back racing in the domestic scene in 2021, competing in the British Supersport class with the factory-supported Dynavolt Triumph team.
The set-up is run by Simon Buckmaster, who has been a team owner in World Supersport since 2008, and already the
Triumph is showing huge potential at the hands of teammates Kyle Smith and Brandon Paasch. The Street Triple 765 derived product is also adding a bit more excitement to the paddock, with an unmistakable soundtrack that makes you proud to be British.
Solid top 10 finishes for both riders has already highlighted the model’s potential this season, and Smith’s win at Brands Hatch has hammered home the package’s potential.
You’d be mad to overlook the factory’s want and will to bag another championship, and if it carries on like this, it won’t be long before it has. From a marketing point of view there is no better advert, and the big question is: How many more Triumphs are we going to see out on that grid in the near future?
If the last three decades of Triumph racing are anything to go by, ‘plenty’ has to be the answer.