OVER 40 YEARS HISTORY IN MOTORSPORT

The foundations for Raidermoto began during the mid 1970’s when team principal Maurice Rissman traded contemporary employment opportunities to pursue a career involving anything relating to automotive competition. Initially entering Drag Racing Maurice built and raced highly modified cars & bikes taking many victories and twice breaking national class records. Maurice’s engineering creativity attracted interest from the circuit racing fraternity for whom he designed, built, and modified, several avant-garde sports-sedans, a category with almost limitless modification allowances. During 1978 the engineering freedoms afforded to this field of racing lead to the design and construction of what was arguably Australia’s first full space-framed racing sedan, based upon a 1979 Ford Falcon.

In 1993 it was back to basics for Raider Motorsport after team boss Maurice Rissman decided to have a little fun and try his hand at karting. As a karting novice, Rissman won the three last rounds of the 1993 Technophone Kart Blanche Championship series generating considerable controversy. Allegations were quick to rise of engine cheating by the Raider Motorsport team and being no stranger to ‘flexing the rules’ himself, series promoter Phil Ward told Rissman in no uncertain terms that he “could not have won so convincingly without cheating”. Ward went on further suggesting that should he decide to compete in the 94 championship Rissman can expect to be “scrutinized with a magnifying glass”! No amount of refutation, including an offer for Ward to take the engine and have it examined, managed to change opinions, and so the cast was set for the coming year’s championship; it would be won at any cost!

Whilst the majority of Raider Motorsport’s 30+ years experience has been in four-wheeled competition, 1998 saw the team embark upon an entirely different challenge by entering that strange and little understood (by the 4-wheeled community) world of motorcycle road-racing aboard the worlds most successful Superbike, Ducati.

Having little knowledge of the two wheeled world it was decided to partner an established team in order to fast track the learning process. For 1999 Raider Motorsport became a key financial partner in the Sydney based Ducati Bears F1 racing team. With legendary rider Peter Hinton, Mike ‘the bike’ Soderland and Kerry Mills, the trio achieved a world first win for the Pierre Terblanche designed Ducati 900SS, in the Motorcycle Concepts 1999 Six-Hour Endurance race. Although still part of the Bear’s F1 team, in 2001 Raider Motorsport became a satellite operation entering a single Ducati 916 for novice rider Maurice Rissman who in his first full season of competition secured the Ducati Bears F1 team their maiden, and only, victory at National level.

In 1990 Thalgo Cosmetics signed a two year contract with Raider Motorsport for the 1991/92 Formula Brabham Championship. Directly following the 1st round of the 91 Championship, held at Eastern Creek Raceway , Raider Motorsport Team Thalgo undertook a 5 day testing & development programme primarily to diagnose a directional stability problem occurring through the circuit’s ultra fast turn 1.

On the last day of testing Mark McLaughlin recorded an unofficial 1m:21.47sec lap and on the proceeding lap McLaughlin put the inside rear wheel slightly up the ripple strip of turn 10 and the resultant loss of diffuser down-force caused a massive spin. During the course of spinning the car turned 180° at which time the diffuser acted as wing lifting the car almost vertical before slamming back to earth on all four wheels. Miraculously the car was unscathed and McLaughlin was sent directly back to work none the worse for his spectacular dance with destruction. At completion of the programme both car and driver were some 2+ seconds quicker than our nearest rival (Mark Skiafe), so the team headed back to prepare for the forecoming round unaware that the fragile honeycomb monocoque had been severely compromised.

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