Two teams partner up to race a Suzuki in new British category

VLR Racing and NIWA Racing have announced a link-up to enter a new category.

They will race in the 2025 National Sportbike Championship with Kas Beekmans as their rider.

Beekmans is the 2023 Yamaha R3 bLU cRU Cup champion.

The new project will race a Suzuki GSX-8R.

VLR Racing are separately a part of the British Supersport Championship under the team name Affetto Corse, with Jorke Erwig as their rider, so they are expanding into a fresh class.

New British Sportbike project explained

Beekmans said: “After a very long winter, I can finally announce that I will start next year in the BSB National Sportbike championship together with NIWA Racing and VLR Racing.

“The combination of the two promises a lot of good things, as the people involved have a lot of experience, from which I can only learn. So I can't wait until we get started with the new Suzuki project and make a lot of progress with it."

Kevin van Leuven said: “I have had the opportunity to work with Kas over the past two years and we see a lot of potential in him.

“I am therefore very happy that, together with Co Wagenaar from NIWA Racing, we can offer Kas the opportunity to further demonstrate his potential.

“We still have a lot of development work to do with the Suzuki, but we are close to the fire! We are confident that we can put together a competitive package.”

Nico Wagenaar added: “Last season, 2024, we were looking for a talented rider to start our Krämer project on the GP2-RR in the IDC NG. We came into contact with Kas via Kevin. After good consultation, we acted quickly to take part in the last season race in the Supersport NG class and this was not without success!

“Kas is a very talented rider who can become an even more successful rider with the right people around him, but still needs to 'mature' more. We as NIWA Racing would like to witness this, on a brand that is very high-profile for us.

“In this way, we can help Kas to move up in road racing and we have a very strong foundation with the collaboration of VLR Racing.

“The new Suzuki GSX-8R is an absolutely beautiful challenge for us as a team and also for Kas as a rider to compete at the front in the new, very competitive Sportbike class at BSB!”

Tasia Rodink said: “We were already very proud that we are at the start with Jorke in the British supersport class, but that we can add Kas to that is absolutely fantastic!

“Kas and Jorke are both young, have a lot of potential and fit in very well with the team. We are therefore confident that we will have a fun and educational year ahead of us.”