Early Days
While working as a road tester for Colin Schiller's Fast Bikes magazine, Byrne sat and passed his motorcycle test on a Ducati 996 SPS. A test he did at a wet Oulton Park in this era impressed Paul Bird, twice his future boss.
Byrne emerged in the British Superbike Championship in 1999, initially on a private Kawasaki. In 2001 he was 8th in the championship on board the performance house Suzuki (which was raced in wsb in 1997 by the Harris brothers,and is now being being restored back to this spec). Byrne had 5 top-5 finishes in the 2001 season, and was comfortably champion of the Cup for privateers - he was the privateer winner in 22 races out of 26.
Read more about this topic: Shane Byrne (motorcycle Racer)
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