TM Racing Australia gains valuable experience with Daniel McCoy

TM Racing Australia and Daniel McCoy joined forces at the sixth round of the Shell Sunshine State Motocross Series held at Tivoli, Queensland over the weekend.

With McCoy currently out of contract, an opportunity arose for the 2012 Australian 450 Supercross runner up to spend some time riding aboard a TM MX 450Fi after an invitation to test a stock bike was offered to him via TM Racing Australia owner and manager Andrew Franklin.

McCoy flew up to Queensland last Monday the 15th of July to ride a brand new bike fresh out of the crate and after being more than impressed with what the bike was capable of, McCoy took up a one race offer to race the latest round of the Sunny State series in a bid to get some race time under his belt.

“I had not been doing a lot race wise since Conondale back in June.” McCoy explained. “I started talking to Andrew from TM and one thing lead to another and he asked if I would be interested in heading up to Queensland and testing a bike.

“I thought why not, I have nothing to lose, plus I has seen Tanel Leok doing quite well on the bikes in the World GP’s and I thought it would good to see what they were actually like for myself.

“I went up last Monday for a test and was impressed with the bike. It really was awesome; it is definitely an underrated bike.

“It has so much potential and so many adjustments you can make. Andrew plugged in a computer and there were just so many options we had to make the power of the bike suit my riding style.

“I was very impressed and could not believe how good it was to be honest, so I decided to head back on the weekend to have a race,” McCoy added.

With nothing but some suspension changes made to the bike to help him feel comfortable, McCoy rocked up to Tivoli on the weekend and quickly showed that the TM MX450 Fi is more than capable of running at the front of the field.

“Everything on the bike was completely stock for race day, the only thing we played with on the bike was the suspension, that is the most important thing on a bike.

“The first moto was good. The gate I had for the race had a big mud hole in front of it, I got a good jump but lost my momentum when I hit that out of the gate. But within a few turns I made my way from fourth to first.

“I was leading the race until I caught my rear brake lever on the inside of a rut, I was not sure if there was a pipe sticking out in there, but something nasty caught the lever and ripped it right around leaving my with no rear brake.

“I kept riding and finished the race out in fourth with no rear brake. Until that point I felt good on the bike and I was feeling comfortable.

Race two once again saw McCoy up front battling with local Pro and top ten national rider Robbie Marshall for the race lead when some more bad luck came his way.

“We made a couple more suspension changes for the second race to make it a little lower in the back end and also went down one tooth on the rear sprocket and the bike felt even better again.

“I was in second place behind Marshall late in the race, I flat landed a jump and bottomed out the suspension which caused the pipe to jam up against something and come loose.

“It was such a shame, I wanted to finish that race, there are a lot of people that want to talk the bike down because it is not a proven bike, it was honestly just some really back luck out there today.

“I really did like the bike, there is nothing bad to say about it. It is a race bike out of the crate I believe.

“I definitely back the bike and Andrew 100%, hopefully we get the chance to do something like this again in the future.

For TM’s Andrew Franklin the experience proved to be more than worthwhile. It once again proved that with the right rider on board the TM MX 450Fi is more than capable of winning races at any level of competition.

Also having someone of McCoy’s caliber pushing the bike to the limit gave Andrew some testing experience that he may not have had the opportunity to do otherwise.

“It was great to have McCoy out here last Monday and also for this weekends racing.” Andrew stated. “He was more than happy with the bike and could not believe how good it actually was straight out of the crate.

“Motocross can be a harsh sport at times and we had a little bit of misfortune today, but that happens to everyone.

“We certainly gained a lot from having a rider of McCoy’s quality testing and racing our bike and hopefully some day down the track we will be able to work with him some more.” Andrew concluded.