Tyco Suzuki team principal Philip Neill expects Ulsterman William Dunlop and roads superstar Guy Martin to spur each other on to greater heights in 2014.

Dunlop was confirmed in the Moneymore team last month alongside the popular Lincolnshire ace to complete a strong line-up for the Suzuki outfit as both men eye a maiden victory at the Isle of Man TT races in particular.

Martin enjoyed a stirring end to the second half of this season, clinching the Solo Championship crown at the Southern 100 before cleaning up at the Ulster Grand Prix at Dundrod, where the English challenger clinched a hat-trick.

And with Dunlop joining the fold next year, Neill feels TAS Racing is returning to its roots as a fully-fledged road racing team.

“We feel we’re getting back to our original structure. We pride ourselves on the fact that we’re doing a good job in BSB now but at the end of the day we started as a road race team and we’ve never left those roots,” Neill told the News Letter.

“We were always renowned for having a strong, two-rider line-up over the years with various riders like [David] Jefferies and [Adrian] Archibald and [Bruce] Anstey and [Cameron] Donald.

“In the past few years we’ve done it a different way – we ran Guy on his own one year and this year we introduced Josh [Brookes] into road racing as a newcomer.

“So it’s nice to get back to a two-rider team and we couldn’t have wished for a better line-up than Guy and William to be fair,” he added.

“We kept Guy informed that we were talking to William and his words to me exactly were ‘nice lad, nice lad’. They are at very different stages of their careers and William is looking forward to working with Guy and learning from him and I know without a doubt – and Guy wouldn’t mind me saying this – there will be things that Guy can learn from William.”


Martin was very much the form man during the second part of the season and Neill credits technical co-ordinator Stewart Johnstone for his role in the team’s success as the year progressed.

“We have one technical co-ordinator in the team now in Stewart Johnstone who is a very experienced individual. Stewart takes care of all the engine and chassis development and it means that the whole direction of the team comes from one mind,” he said.

“Unfortunately we didn’t get the results that we wanted from the TT but sometimes people underestimate how difficult it is to win there.

“You had John McGuinness doing his usual thing and you had Michael [Dunlop] coming to the fore as well. We spoiled ourselves because we started dominating at the TT back in 2002, but you’ve got to realise that you can never go to a race like that expecting to get two or three wins because there is such a strong field.

“In saying that, Guy had one of his best years for us because he won at Cookstown, he won four races at the Spring Cup at Scarborough, he had a podium at the North West 200 and he won the Solo Championship at the Southern 100,” Neill said.

“He got a treble at the Ulster Grand Prix and was dominating at the Gold Cup at Scarborough until the weather went against him in the main race, so he had a strong year.

“We know what we need to work on next year and one big thing is more bike time, but we’ve already addressed that and we’re looking forward to getting the bike out of him at the TT next year and also getting the best out of the bikes as well.”

The Ulster team will once again be backed by Tyco Security Products next year and Neill is indebted to the title backers and Suzuki GB for their invaluable support.,

“We’re happy to be continuing with Tyco Security Products again and we couldn’t afford to run a race team on our own these days, so to have them on board and also the support from Suzuki is vital for us on the roads and in BSB,” he said.



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