TBR - MV Agusta Racing Team show their speed at the creek, round 1 Australian Superbike Championship

2008 is the Debut season of the prestigious MV Agusta brand in the Australian Superbike championship, with the team being run by experienced professionals Craig and Steve Trinder from Gold Coast based Trinder Brothers Racing (TBR) and with the competitiveness seen from the bike in the early stages of development, everybody involved in the team is very excited about what lies ahead…

TBR - MV Agusta Racing Team has begun its 2008 Championship chase in spectacular form at round 1 of the Australian Superbike Championship, held in fine and hot conditions at Sydney's Eastern Creek International Raceway March 14 -16. Team Riders Kevin Curtain (Superbike) and Craig Trinder (Nakedbike) impressed a large crowd showing their awesome pace right from the start of the season.

Piloting MV Agusta's revolutionary F4 312 R Superbike, former multiple Australian champion Kevin Curtain whom has returned from a world supersport ride in Europe last season to pilot the MV 312 in the Australian series. Curtain had a hectic weekend, with the team making major changes to the bike setup as the weekend progressed. Race 1 saw Curtain sitting comfortably in 5th but unfortunately a minor clutch issue forced him back to 10th and still valuable championship points. Race 2 was a different story with Curtain showing the might of the MV finishing a very creditable 5th, in front of several factory team regulars. Curtain clocked a 1:31.4 sec lap time in race 2 which is under the 07 lap record for Superbikes of 1:31.6, the new lap record set by Jamie Stauffer in race 2 was a 1:31.1, proving the MV is right on the pace.

"It's hard to come to the first round and expect to be competitive straight up against the other factory team’s who have been coming here for years and have a lot of crucial set up info. Friday morning practice was a bit daunting; the bike’s standard suspension was struggling to keep up as we tried to go faster. The team worked back Friday night and again on Saturday night to come up with a good set up that worked well on race day and the results showed it. I am very confident we have a package that is capable of running right at the front; we showed that in race 2 and was evident in the lap times. The exciting thing is we have a lot of room left to develop the bike and Steve and his team at TBR know what it takes to win races" said an up beat Curtain.

Former Australian & International Champion Craig Trinder had a perfect weekend on his MV Agusta Brutale RR in the Nakedbike class winning 3 races from 3 starts. In race 1 a bad start saw Trinder having to carve through the pack in spectacular style to finish 1st in the Nakedbike class by a substantial margin. Race 2 & 3 also saw bad starts for Trinder but he got through to the front quickly where he finished 1st in class comfortably again.

"We struggled a bit with set up on Friday and the team worked really hard to improve things for race day. I've worked really hard on my fitness over the past 6 months and I'm really happy to come away with 3 wins and a good championship lead after the first round. The team has done a fantastic job and we have a lot of room to further improve the bike as the season goes on. Our new suspension we were hoping to have for both bikes in time for Round 1 arrived today…anyway we are very excited at the improvements that will come in the next few rounds" said an ecstatic Trinder.

Round 2 of the Australian Superbike Championship will be held at Mallala raceway (Adelaide) April 18 -20. This gives the TBR MV Agusta Racing Team valuable development time in the lead up.