The Suzuki Katana Endurance race bike

So you want to get out there with an icon from the 1980s. What to do... what to do... how about building a 152bhp Katana? Yeah, that’ll do it.

Suzuki GB hadn’t been racing (officially) for over four decades. When a few of the current SGB team decided it was time to return to the paddock they wanted something special to do it on. Turning the Katana from a road bike of the 1980s to a 152bhp missile wasn’t an easy task.

There’s an understandable beam of pride that comes from Tim Davies and Nathan Colombi when either of the two men talk about the Suzuki Gb/team Classic Suzuki Katana race bike – and it could be because that, despite what you might think when you look at this ‘factory’ race bike, this has been something of a labour of love. And Suzuki Vintage Parts Programme. There’s quite a bit of that in the big bike, too. But before we get into the actual budget for the racing and the reality of how such things play out in the season of Endurance eventing, let’s begin with how the project came about in the first place. Tim (his day job is Suzuki GB aftersales marketing coordinator – his hobby, currently, is building his own Suzuki RGV250 special) explained how the idea to go Kat racing came about: “We sponsored an event in 2015 with the Endurance Legends people at Snetterton, we were the main sponsors, and they said: ‘Look, we’re gong to do this again, would you be the sponsor again?’ and we thought – you know what, let’s be the sponsor and let’s also put a team in. And that’s what got the ball rolling. “We looked at various different bikes. There’s the GSX-R1000 (GS1000) but that’s been done so many times and we thought well, what else can we do with that sort of bike. The Katana was a good choice because there’s none out there and it’s an iconic bike.

“It was myself, Nathan and Michael Le-flay (2W/4W marketing manager) that discussed which bike to build and as soon as we said Katana we all knew straight away it was the bike to build. Nathan was very confident that it could be done. We had a blank piece of paper and let Nathan work his magic on the bike. As it was Suzuki GB effectively building this bike it had to be just right and looking at the end product, I think we achieved that and then some… “We’ve been working closely with Nathan and TCS for some time now and with the level of expertise we knew it could be done though I do remember many late nights on the run-up to the live build at Motorcycle Live that year! I think my family almost forgot who I was... sorry, girls.” While the big Kat might look iconic, it was never meant to be a true race bike – surely there would have been easier options for Suzuki GB to use? “Yes there are easier motorcycles to do this with, but it just looks so right. It’s a cool looking motorcycle,” says Tim. “And with what we had planned to do to it, it was just clear that was the route we should go down and the bike really suited our plan. A lot of people who worked on the Kat also worked on the XR69 bike at the Classic TT, so we were pretty confident that it would work.” So the bike was chosen as much for the message that seeing a big Katana going about its business on track sends out as anything else, but Tim admits that what is happening in the motorcycle landscape now, and over the past couple of years, had a passing hand in the bike selection, too. “Well we saw it with our vintage parts programme at Suzuki. We’ve got nine bikes in there at the moment and the sales have been good, we’ve shifted a lot of goods through the programme whether it be through dealers, through our ebay store or website and you can see the popularity of certain models. “It surprises me every time we do a bike. We’ve just finished the RG500 which will be going live in a few months’ time.” Yes, CR asked the same question that you just wondered about – does that mean that we could see an RG500 ‘modern’ retro race bike joining the ranks on track from Suzuki GB/TCS soon too? “Wouldn’t it be nice? But ‘no’ is the answer to that one. No. It’s great though we’ve got other bikes going on there.” Dammit. Okay, so let’s stay on track. While the Katana might, at first glance, look just like the bikes you remember, there is a small amount of smoke and mirrors in effect. And like with any race series that any team wants to take part in, Suzuki started with the best place to start – the rule book. Tim said: “Once we had the rules we could see what we were allowed and not allowed to do. And we went down the route of rather than having a standard frame we decided on a handmade frame. It meant we had to have smaller wheels but it was worth it because the benefits are with the steering really. You can strengthen the frame where you need to and you don’t need the big subframe, you can change the rake of the steering head and you can make it handle a lot better and it’s a lot lighter. “We got a frame and we bought an engine and for the frame we used the lines of the original so that the frame looks very similar but we’ve obviously adapted it to work for racing – which is what it’s all about. “It means we can use the XR69 forks and K-tech suspension on the back as well so it just enabled us to tie in things with Team Classic Suzuki. Even though it’s a Suzuki GB bike we ran it under the Team Classic Suzuki colours. TCS was more than happy for us to tag along. “The interest we had after the first race at Donington, and then when we went to Spa with Guy Martin and Pete Boast, was huge. And that weekend in Spa was a phenomenal weekend. The weather was atrocious and bear in mind that we hadn’t really tested the bike – we tested at Rockingham for about 20 laps before. Went into Donington and we had mainly wet practices, possibly one dry practice and then we did one lap in the race.” The Donington race ended early when James Whitham made a hugely uncharacteristic error and dumped the bike in the gravel trap on the first lap. It might have been game over for that outing but soon enough the Katana was heading out again at Francorchamps, Spa. “When we went to Spa it was an unknown territory really,” added Tim. “We tried to sort the lights out but the lights really weren’t very good at all and the riders were very dependent on following

bikes down the straight so that they could see. Spa is such a big circuit that when you get out the back in the forest during the night it’s pitch black. The guys did so well and we finished seventh, which was an unbelievable result for us.” The outings might have been less than spectacular from the start, but to the very audience that the bike was built to appeal to (that’s you, basically) racing in the way the team did – and with what happened on track – really solidified the experience and echoed the old days of racing. Tim again: “Suzuki GB has not been racing since the Heron days and that’s what we wanted to get back to, the vintage roots of Heron. So that was also in our thoughts leading up to the Katana project – there’s a lot of things that we wanted to try and bring in and get that passion back. “The hardest thing about this project isn’t the building of the bike but it’s actually the racing itself. The bike creation was fairly straightforward. Racing’s such an unknown quantity. It’s difficult because we had a lot of experience in the team but having not done it things caught us out. “We spoke to other teams and whatnot and we did get help from other teams – to be fair, one thing that we have which has been an absolute joy is the camaraderie with the other teams – initially they might think that we’ve got big budgets but the reality is that we’ve probably spent less on this than the other endurance teams and I’m being brutally honest with that. “We’ve spent on the build a total of £32,000 (including labour, which is often overlooked) which seems an awful lot of money but there’s bikes out there that cost £40-£50k and there’s teams that spend £80k on their bikes so yes, £32k is a lot of money but it’s a lot less than some others spend. “It’s got to be justifiable because we’re Suzuki GB and the feedback and the coverage we’ve had has been fantastic.”