PAUL DENNING
The Dorset motorcycle dealer who has run factory BSB, WSB and MotoGP teams
‘A few times there were some sleepless nights’
Crescent Motorcycles must be the only dealership in the world that can claim to not only have run a Japanese factory’s official national level race team, but also teams in both MotoGP and World Superbikes. That’s a hugely impressive achievement for a dealership set up in a somewhat remote area of Dorset, and it is all down to the drive and determination of one man – Paul Denning – plus, according to the man himself, a healthy dose of beginner’s luck and family support. “After my grandfather, Edward, founded ‘Crescent Cycle and Motorcycle Co’ in Bournemouth in 1950, in 1963 we became one of the first Suzuki dealers in the UK but the advent of the GSX-R models changed our business into what it is today. I got involved around the same time the original GSX-R750 was released in 1985 and after racing motocross for most of my life, I swapped to road racing in 1993 on a Suzuki RGV250P and in 1996 decided to step up to BSB with a team backed by the shop. Alongside Ian Cobby I was the first Crescent Suzuki BSB rider, but I couldn’t run a business, organise a team, sort sponsors and also ride at a decent level. Jim Moodie called me towards the end of the season and asked if he could ride the bike instead, I agreed and it was probably the best decision I have ever made! “Being a team owner and a team manager are two very different things. When I set up the Crescent Suzuki BSB team in 1996 I was the team owner as it was the business’s money and the risk was all Crescent’s. Back then it took around £300,000 to run a two-man BSB team, but by the time we took the title in 2004 it was over £1 million. As an owner you need to underwrite all this risk, so if a sponsorship agreement doesn’t work out as planned then you can be in trouble. A few times in the early years the dealership was at risk and there were some sleepless nights. As the financial side you are dealing with around ten full-time staff, logistics, mechanics, bikes and riders.
“Choosing the right rider for a team is a huge challenge and a combination of luck and judgment. Look at MotoGP this year, who would have known that Fabio Quartararo would have been such a revelation? Sometimes we’ve had a call from a rider who we thought was out of our budget, but they are keen because the team is well respected and they think they can succeed with you. Sometimes the factory requests a rider, which is what happened with Yukio Kagayama and was the catalyst for a much wider relationship with Suzuki. Money can buy you the best rider, but sometimes this isn’t how
‘Being a team manager is more of a buzz than racing’
the factory wants to work. Yamaha in WSB, for example, want to grow ‘Yamaha’ riders through youth teams and development plans rather than just buy in proven winners. “When we ran Suzuki’s MotoGP team from 2005 to 2011 I was the team manager but all the commercial risk was with Suzuki; I was being paid to operate and develop the team and look after the staff and budgets etc, which was a privilege. MotoGP was a big step up from BSB, but it was exciting more than daunting. Suzuki’s project had become rather lackluster and I wanted to inject a new spirit into it, which is what they wanted too. At first I was shocked just how poor the bike was, not really in terms of technology but more in the details and finish. This was Suzuki’s brand on display to a global audience, so I tried to change the company’s philosophy and to give the engineers a new drive. The results started to come in 2006 and in particular 2007 with John Hopkins and Chris Vermeulen, but in truth Suzuki weren’t 100% committed to a winning MotoGP project.
“Moving from MotoGP to WSB in 2012 was another big change. Budgets in WSB are about a sixth of those in MotoGP and we privately ran the Crescent WSB team, so Crescent was an owner again with Suzuki’s support as a sponsor. The WSB paddock is a very different place and is honestly the best series I’ve been involved with. It’s a proper world championship with toplevel riders and bikes, but there is a more sporting and less political feel than in MotoGP. The new Yamaha WSB partnership started in 2016 with Yamaha Motor Europe, and this has been an excellent ‘hybrid’ relationship with Yamaha and Crescent sharing many of the risks, and is probably the ideal situation. “Being a team manager gives me even more of a buzz than racing. When you win you win as a team and that’s a great feeling after a lot of hard work over a weekend and the many months before developing the bike. Not only that, the only danger I have is being hit in the eye by a champagne cork, not cartwheeling into Paddock Hill’s gravel trap.”