MTA February 2023 SA

UNITECH RACING
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“Young Samuel Pezzetta who rides
for us, some of his family came along
for the first time and they were blown
away. They’d never seen the sport,
they’d never seen how exciting and
thrilling it is.
“These people were saying ‘how
come we’ve never seen this before?’
“That really resonated with me. It’s
like, the general public don’t know
about it, they don’t see how exciting
and thrilling it is.”
While the sport works hard to
promote itself, it doesn’t seem to
cut outside its own supporter base,
attracting new fans and sponsors.
But switch up from two wheels to
four and it’s a different story.
“I don’t know why Supercars should
have the peak of it all because it’s the
same thing to us.
“As someone said to us, ‘you guys
are participating in the equivalent
of the V8 Supercars with the bikes
but we don’t get the publicity and we
don’t get the sponsorship from the
bigger companies and I don’t know
why that is.”
Unitech’s biggest need right now is
a truck to help ease the pressure of
travelling around the country.
“That will save Pete a lot of time
and energy because every time
we’ve got to go to a race meeting,
we’re taking six bikes so that means
three vehicles, three trailers, loading,
unloading, toolboxes, tubs of
equipment so that’s a lot of physical
work. If we had a truck, we could
leave a lot of things in the truck.
“We’ve been trying to say to Yamaha
‘you need to do a little bit more to
help us’.”
Donna would also love to see more
new blood keen to join pit crews.
“There’s not enough people learning
how to do the data, how to be
technicians how to be mechanics.
“It’s very intense on race day. We’re
chasing like not even a tenth of
a second, less than that which is
massive in the scheme of things.
Every little thing you do in the pits is
about getting that little extra fraction
of a second.
“To teach young people that is a
good thing.
“A lot of people on our team are older
people. As some of us are getting
older, we see the value of having young
people on the team too, so it is very
important that we train people up.”
But even if that influx of young
mechanics materialises, Unitech
is content with its place in the
Superbikes landscape and has no
plans to expand, even if it means
losing riders to bigger teams.
“We don’t have the personnel to
maintain another bike at race
meetings, that would take a whole
new level of management.”
The trick now is to somehow make
it more sustainable.
“We all love doing this but it does
cost our businesses when we’re
away.
“I think the buzz about our team
within our state is really good and
there have been a lot more young
riders joining the national circuit
because of our team and what
they learn from us.
“As a result of that, a lot of people
within our state then come in and
bring business to us also.
“We just have to find the magic
ingredient where we can make
money off the race team.”
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