Pridmore to World Superbike Championship!

TOOELE – UTAH – Alto Evolution Honda Superbike would like to communicate to the world motorcycle media that from the USA Round up to the end of the season a new rider will take part of the Superbike World Championship together with Shuhei Aoyama.

This decision was taken after the five first rounds of the Championship because the Team needed a more experienced rider in order to help Aoyama in his process of adapting his riding style to Superbike. Unfortunately, Luca Morelli was too young to make this role, apart from his riding skills and fast style, and this was the main reason that made both him and Alto Evolution agreed on breaking their racing agreement.

This choice points to the place where the World Superbike is racing this week, and more specifically to the AMA and one of its most important riders, the Californian Jason Pridmore.

The idea of bringing Pridmore to Team Alto Evolution happened during the Monza Round of the World Superbike Championship, when his manager, Michael Murphy, was introduced to the Team Manager, the Eng. Marco Nicotari. It was around 15 days from that informal meeting up to the formal agreement, and the entire Team is really excited about having a rider as talented as Pridmore to help in the development of the new CBR-1000RR.

Pridmore has been riding at Miller Motorsports Park since 2006, when he took part in both AMA Superbike and Superstock races and during the past three years he has been coming here with his riding school, the STAR Motorcycle School. He became an AMA rider in 1992; in 1998 he took part in the American round of the World Supersport Championship in Laguna Seca and finished in 3rd place. In addition, in 2002 he won the AMA Formula Xtreme Championship and in 2003 the World Endurance Championship.

Confirming the rumours that came about in the paddock yesterday afternoon, Pridmore had been to the Alto Evolution garage and met the Team. Everybody was excited about his presence, and his technicians, crew chief and the Team Manager could answer some questions about the bike and we could learn from him a bit about the circuit and his expectations: “Being in the World Superbike is like a dream come true; I am feeling remotivated and excited to be here.”

After his visit in our garage, the Eng. Marco Nicotari has declared that “We are very happy about having Jason with us and I am sure that he can help us to reach the goals we set for this season.”

The Team has been working hard since the Monza round in order to solve all technical issues with the electronics and get the bikes ready for these races in the USA. Miller Motortsports Park is a beautiful place and having the AMA championship and World Superbike together has certainly brought more emotion and colour to the weekend. We all hope for extremely fast and competitive sunny days among the Utah mountains.