It has been much publicised in MCN that at the TT our PTR organisation pulled its support from the Wilson Craig Racing team. We were very sad to do this but we had no choice as Wilson refused to honour the contract for the services we had supplied.

Wilson had went as far as avoiding a meeting with me during the NW200 but accepted all our back up and the support of the PTR staff for the week – and then after he had scored a second place in the only race with Cameron Donald – clearly on a superior bike to winner Alistair Seeley – he told us he wasn’t going to pay PTR for our services and didn’t value our expertise. This came after winning 10 out of 10 races at Easter with our very significant support.

Suffice to say that we left his bikes in good condition before telling him we were not supporting him at the TT. I am a man who works on trust and was surprised by Wilson – we had proved ourselves in all we had done and in the results and he shrewdly waited until after the event to tell me he was not paying PTR.

When we withdrew our support Cameron and William were first and second in the Supersport class at the TT practice and the Superbike and Superstock bikes were in mint condition. It is no surprise to me that with his own staff taking over from us they then experienced a host of technical problems and mistakes. The performance level deteriorated as time went by and they changed the bikes from what we had delivered. I would like to thank Wilson for taping up the PTR logos on his bikes so that the public knew we were no longer involved in what turned out to be a major performance disappointment.

I am sorry for Cameron Donald and William Dunlop who after Easter and the NW200 felt as I did that they had a good chance of success in the TT only for Wilson to cut corners financially in all the wrong areas. Wilson has put a lot into the sport and it was a shame to see him fail like this.

That’s the record put straight and if anyone has any doubts, just look at what PTR has achieved with first the late Craig Jones, then Eugene Laverty and now Sam Lowes in WSS – this is a World Class organisation that knows how to succeed. We did not support and then withdraw that support lightly from Wilson Craig – we wanted it to succeed and I am as disappointed as William and Cameron not to be able to add a TT victory to our company CV.

A hard lesson for us as we are out of pocket and I suspect sadly a hard lesson for Wilson that he cannot do it with his own current staff or level of investment.

This is a costly lesson that we will learn from for sure and it will make us stronger.

Cheers

Simon Buckmaster