New Zealand’s biggest stand-alone road-race series is set to get even bigger.

Thanks to continued support from Suzuki New Zealand, the annual Suzuki Tri Series – which includes the famous Boxing Day street race meeting on the public roads of Wanganui’s Cemetery Circuit – looks set to sparkle again in 2012 and beyond.

With sponsorship dollars for sports events harder to come by with each passing year, Tri Series organiser Alan ‘Flea’ Willacy is thrilled to announce that Suzuki New Zealand has again come to the party, confirming sponsorship of the popular series for the next two years.

The iconic Boxing Day street race event in Wanganui is again the third and final round of that Suzuki Tri Series competition. This year will also be the 60th running of the legendary Cemetery Circuit race.

“It’s fantastic to have this support from Suzuki this year and in 2013 as well,” said Willacy.

The Cemetery Circuit event is one of New Zealand’s biggest bike races, an iconic event on the Kiwi race calendar, a spectacular one-day show that attracts many thousands of race fans each summer and also lures top-class motorcycle racers from throughout New Zealand and from overseas as well.

“Suzuki is a company that does so much for motorcycling in New Zealand,” said Willacy.

Suzuki rider Andrew Stroud made it four consecutive Tri Series outright wins when he wrapped up the superbike title again on Boxing Day last year.

The nine-time former and reigning national superbike champion from Hamilton finished runner-up at the 2011 series opener at Hampton Downs in December and snatched the points lead when he won the day at round two at Manfeild a week later.

He was beaten on the twisty streets of Wanganui’s fabled Cemetery Circuit on Boxing Day’s series finale but that didn’t matter because he had earlier accumulated enough points to rubber-stamp his “ownership” of the Suzuki Tri Series.

Stroud has won the superbike component of the series every year since the inaugural running in 2008 and will be hoping to extend that to a fifth title when the 2012 series kicks off this December.

Confirmed dates for this year’s Suzuki Tri-Series are:

Round one: Hampton Downs, December 8;

Round two: Manfeild, December 15;

Round three: Cemetery Circuit, Wanganui: December 26

© Words and photo by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com