Triple British Supersport Champion and British Superbike podium finisher Karl Harris will make his road-racing debut at the 2012 Isle of Man TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy.

The Sheffield rider will contest all three 1000cc solo races for the Lancashire-based SMT Honda squad which has been one of the leading British Superbike Championship teams for the past six seasons.

32-year old Harris burst onto the racing scene as a teenager in the 1990s, when he rode for Team Great Britain in the Superteen Championship, the series that produced so many of the countries leading contenders. From there, Harris went on to win the 1999 European Superstock 1000cc Championship before spending a season in the World Supersport Championship.

However, it is perhaps his exploits in the British Championship for which he is better known. He was the dominant force in the highly competitive British Supersport Championship in the early 2000s before becoming a prominent front-runner in the Superbike class itself for the factory Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha teams.

Harris won three British Supersport Championships between 2001 and 2004, the first for Crescent Suzuki and the remaining two for Honda Racing, before progressing to the premier Superbike category in 2005 where he has remained ever since. His best season came in 2006 when he finished in 5th place overall recording 6 podiums. In total, Harris has notched up 12 BSB podiums and ended 2011 as part of the Splitlath Redmond Aprilia squad.

Robin Croft’s SMT team has also been formidable competitors in the BSB Championship, fielding riders including Michael Rutter, Chris Walker, James Ellison, Dan Linfoot, Jason O’Halloran and Harris himself. Their best season came in 2010 when Walker finished 10th overall in the Championship but arguably their finest moments came in the second half of the 2011 season when Ellison joined the team and took a succession of top eight finishes including a brilliant 3rd place at the final Brands Hatch round, when he got the better of Championship contenders Tommy Hill and John Hopkins.

SMT has changed its racing strategy for 2012 and with team owner Croft being a long-time supporter of the TT, as well as being associated with riders including Rutter, John McGuinness and Dave Dean, they’ve now decided to tackle the Mountain Course this year.

Commenting after his first visit to the Isle of Man to get an introduction to the track from TT rider liaison officers John Barton and Richard Quayle, Karl said:

"It's properly exciting. I've done a few laps now with Milky and the place is awesome but you've got it treat it with the respect it deserves. I've got a long association with Robin and the boys at SMT so it's great to do this for the first time with a team I know and trust. I've always wanted to do the TT just never had the opportunity so it is really something to look forward to. I've got a lot of work to do looking at on-board DVDs so it's going to be a learning process but it will be fun."

Robin Croft, Team Manager, SMT Racing, commented:

“I’m a great supporter of the TT Races and the event continues to go from strength to strength. We’re really looking forward to being part of the meeting and I’m sure that Karl is going to give a good account of himself on the Isle of Man.”

Paul Phillips, TT and Motorsport Manager, Isle of Man Government commented:

“Karl Harris is undoubtedly one of the most naturally talented riders on the British scene in the last ten years and I’m sure that with proper application he can build a great TT career for himself. He has all the attributes to make a great TT racer and I’m sure fans will look forward to seeing him on the Isle of Man this year.”

According to the Swedish Riders Organisation (SMC) information in motorcycle helmets can save four lives per year!
 
This week, 65 000 members of the Swedish Motorcyclist Association, SMC, get a Medical Card kit. The Swedish medical card follows the UKs Ambulance Motorcycle Club Crash Card, the Rider Alert scheme in the US with a CRASH card scheme to be launched in Northern Ireland.
 
The Swedish Medical Card kit includes four stickers to add on the helmet/s and a card for medical information to put between the shell and padding of the helmet. With this effort, SMC hope to save a few lives per year through fast and adequate rescue in case of an accident.
 
Motorcyclists are killed and injured in accidents on Swedish Roads every year. The Swedish riders are getting older. Many persons have some kind of allergy or chronic disease. It doesn’t matter if you are going on a ride on your own or with a group – you can’t rely on anyone else to describe your personal medical status. It is much safer if you fill it out on a Medical Card and put it in your helmet.
 
It is well established that the victim’s chances of survival are greatest if they receive care within a short period of time after a severe injury. Since Sweden is a big country where huge areas is sparsely populated there isn’t always an ambulance in the neighbourhood.
 
If you suffer from a disease like for example diabetes, there can be a solution to the crash and the rescue team will know what kind of emergency care the victim needs.
 
According to the Swedish Transport Administration four lives can be saved with fast and adequate rescue. This is the reason for SMC to send out stickers and Medical Cards to 65, 000 members.
 
The Medical Card Sticker is added on the bottom on the back of the helmet and indicates that the rider has a Medical Card in the helmet, between the shell and padding, with medical information.
 
Every helmet owner adds information on the medical card. On one side the owner writes: medical history, medical treatment and allergies. On the other side the owner will write name, personal ID number and ICEnumber. All information is translated to English.
 
”It’s a simple but genius idea that started among ambulance drivers in England. It’s now spreading all over the world”, says Jesper Chrisensen, general secretary of SMC. Both motorcycle riders and ambulance staff in other countries have already testified that the Medical Cards saved lives. If we can save the life of only one rider, SMC has succeeded with this initiative”, continues Christensen.
 
The initiative from SMC was on Swedish National TV: 
 
Ambulance Motorcycle Club Crash Cards 
 
Crash Cards For Northern Ireland

THE BIKER GUIDE

The annual National Road Rally, organised by the Auto Cycle Union (ACU) was first run in 1933 (there have been gaps!) but is still the longest running and largest motor sport event run on the public highway in the UK, attracting well over 500 entries every year.

The event, a Navigational Scatter allows bikers to devise their own routes from a supplied Matrix listing of over 50 Controls located in England.

In 2012 the National Road Rally takes place over the weekend of Saturday 30th June – Sunday 1st July and bikers can choose to cover any distance from 200 to 540 miles in the allocated 20 hours. Bikers start at one of the five Major Control points from 2pm on Saturday and visit as many of the Controls within the 540-mile maximum as they can to finish by 10am on Sunday. 

There are a range of prizes to be won for the bikers who get to the most Controls and therefore clock up the most miles, all finishers achieving their target receive an attractive plaque. This years Major Controls are located at: Frome, Leeds, London, Whitchurch and Wisbech.

The Rally is organised and managed by a team of volunteers who make up the ACU Rally Committee and in conjunction with the British Motorcycle Federation (BMF) help raise money for the learning disability charity Mencap.

www.nationalroadrally.co.uk

In the 29th February edition of Motorcycle News (MCN), Senior Reporter Steve Farrell led an article entitled “EU targets choppers” with a sub heading of, “Latest EU plans would ban long forks”.
 
Farrell starts the article with, “Choppers could be consigned to history by the latest proposals from Brussels to prevent us modifying our bikes.” The Motorcycle Action Group are reported as saying, “It could make building choppers impossible and accuses the EC of basing proposals on ignorance.
 
Nich Brown, MAG’s General Secretary is quoted as saying, “The intention to restrict modifications to forks had been expressed in a meeting between representatives of the EC,
 
DfT and motorcycle lobby groups. This is a simple case of an official on the EC who doesn’t understand motorcycles but doesn’t like the look of extended forks believing he needs to regulate it.”
 
Moving forward a week, that motorcycle soothsayer Kevin Ash, heads his column in Motorcycle News with “Why we need to stop EU banning choppers” and “explains” all the reasons why choppers should not be banned by the EU and concludes that this will be a, “huge blow against individuality and freedom of expression.”
 
Moving swiftly on to the glossy monthly “custom” magazines, Back Street Heroes (BSH) and 100% Biker. Their respective editors Stu Garland and Nik Samson write in their columns about the doom that custom bikes will face due to the EU proposals, and sound the death knell of custom bikes and long forks.
 
The BSH column has snippets such as, “Striking directly at the heart of all that we hold dear is a targeted attempt to prevent builders from fitting “long-forks”……” and “They have gone as far as proposing the successful completion of slalom and U-turn tests before a bike can be registered, which, they figure, should effectively ban long-forked chops without having to put any technical definition in black and white.”
 
The BSH column continues with all the other interpreted reasons why the EU proposals mean that riders are staring the enemy in the face.
 
100% Bikers Editor Nik Samson writes that, “The European Commission is starting to get down to business... And the first proposal of the day is this: they’ve decided that part of the new regulations, which will affect all bikes registered for the road in the future, should be re-written to prevent folk from using “long forks”. Yep, you read that right, and no, we’re not having you on.”
 
Samson continues, “the Commission now wants any bike being put through MSVA (Motorcycle Single Vehicle Approval) to complete tight slalom and U-turn manoeuvres to prevent modifications to the length of the forks.” He continues with all the reasons that choppers are not dangerous adding, “an age-old way of life that brings employment and pleasure to a huge group of people will have been scoured from the planet.”
 
Both BSH and 100% Biker editors recommend that the only realistic hope of seeing off such dire threats or you care about custom bikes, custom bike building or the custom bike lifestyle is to join the Motorcycle Action Group. 100% Biker’s Nik Samson writes, “to support the fight that they are putting up against this sort of “bullshit”.
 
And “bullshit” is a very apt word to use for the reporting by these magazines.
 
Why do we say that?
 
Surely there must be some basis in truth, or otherwise these “respected” magazines and their reporters and editors would not have put ink to paper.
 
Read the full article on Right To Ride EU and why we say – Choppers are here to stay.