This year is going to be a “funsies” year. We’re only doing events that are:

• Required to maintain our licenses
• On the bucket list
• Actually useful for 2026 preparation

There are a lot of reasons for this, but it mostly comes down to one thing: in the past, we’ve been trying to force success without proper preparation. Shockingly, that hasn’t worked out super well. So now, we’re starting from the ground up.

Over the offseason, the EX500 got a full frame-up rebuild. The goal? Exorcise its murderous, unreliable tendencies and get it ready to fight for “not last” in the WERA 2-hour endurance race—because apparently, everyone loves watching vintage bikes get bullied by modern machinery.

We also picked up the Chiefs Racing Team’s Suzuki SV650. It’s old, it’s been crashed more times than anyone can count (even without factoring in the standard racer concussions), but it’s fast. It consistently landed on the podium, and with our eyes on the 2026 WERA endurance season, there’s no better bike to do it on.

Testing is now mandatory. Gone are the days of showing up on race day and hoping our mechanical skills are enough to make things work out of the box. So, we packed up the new toys and headed to Road Atlanta for a track day.

Alex has been to four events with the 500, but it’s never run long enough for him to actually ride it. And it handles just funky enough that I wouldn’t want him figuring it out mid-race. The goal for the weekend was simple: make sure everything works so we don’t struggle at Cycle Jam in a month.

I’m pretty confident in my mechanical abilities. I’ve done a lot with bikes and cars over the years. But tearing the 500 down to the crankshaft and replacing every single bolt with brand-new parts is a big task. Taking it straight to 120 mph on a racetrack really makes you think about all the bolts you might have forgotten to tighten.

At a certain point, though, you just have to send it. Trust your work, trust your instincts, and hope that trust is well-placed. And for once—it actually panned out! It rode beautifully and flew through corners better than it ever had before. I wish I knew which part made the difference, but doing all of them definitely did something right.

By the third session, I was building confidence—until I forgot that old bikes don’t like going full tilt for extended periods. I knew better, but I ran it too hard, and it came into the pits dumping oil. Classic engine demise. It’s fine. I only spent the past two months building it.

Onto the SV.
Alex had no major complaints. The tank is slippery, and the brakes are “interesting.” A quick order from our friends at TechSpec will fix the tank grip, and we chalked the brakes up to new bike quirks—until it was my turn.

Now, I said this bike was fast before, but it’s legitimately fast. The engine has a laundry list of upgrades that push it to a fire-breathing 95whp on a conservative day. Turn 9 at Road Atlanta is about 155 mph with my 135-pound frame on it, right before the 100+ mph slowdown into Turn 10.

It’s also the worst place to lose brakes. Sure, the gravel trap will slow you down—but it’ll also eat your bike alive at that speed. If you guessed what happened next, congrats: gold star for you. My sometimes-brakes turned into no-brakes, and I careened into the gravel at a truly butt-puckering pace.

Somehow, through sheer luck (definitely not skill), I kept it upright—until about 5 mph, when my foot slipped and dropped the bike. Day over.

There wasn’t much damage, but without a deep dive into the brake issue, we were tapped out. And Chili’s $6 margaritas were calling our name.

So here we are: mildly toasty after a long day of breaking things, with no functioning bikes and Cycle Jam just around the corner.

If we fix the SV, we’re doing the 4-hour—which means we need two more riders. Not a bad thing, but I’m not putting anyone on a bike I don’t trust.

If we fix the 500, we stick with the original plan. But Alex still hasn’t ridden it.

Then there’s the wild card.
After 2023, I was pretty fed up with the RC390 and sold it to a friend to fund other projects. It’s been sitting in timeout without an engine ever since, while I’ve regretted selling it—because it’s a really fun bike.

So, if we drive 1,000 miles each way to buy it back, order an engine, and rebuild it from the pile of boxes I left it in two years ago, we’d have a modern bike for the 2-hour. It’s only four weeks away. And nothing has ever gone wrong in a month-long scramble, right?

Remember when I said we weren’t figuring it out on race day?

Yeah. Old habits die hard.

Honestly, we have no clue what we’re doing. We barely post on the team’s social media, the bikes rarely work, and none of our plans ever seem to pan out. When we do manage to pull off a result, it’s usually thanks to a $1200 Ninja 250 that simply refuses to die. So why start a blog?

Two reasons: I’m really good at forgetting to turn on the cameras, and I’m an even better procrastinator.

Since the inception of Tuxedo Shirt Racing, we’ve managed to do some pretty cool things—but it’s been an uphill battle the entire way. At our very first event, Brennan crashed four laps into practice, nearly totaling our shiny new RC390. We somehow snagged a top 10 at CMP with more zip ties and JB Weld than should legally be allowed. The rest of the season? A string of engine failures—one of which lasted a whole 200 feet before turning into a paperweight.

Last year, we decided to tackle the MRA 4-Hour in Denver. We struggled so much with the three bikes we prepped that we ended up buying a 2005 CBR600RR off Facebook Marketplace and building it in the pits—just in time for practice on race day. Then Brennan crashed due to a fuel leak. He limped the bike back to the pits, and what followed was the most beautiful display of chaotic teamwork I’ve seen in a long time. We got the bike back out there, only lost 15 minutes, and somehow didn’t finish last. Not even close.

I could list every event we’ve done, but that’s not the point. Every race weekend brings some kind of madness, and there’s no way to capture it all in a 250-character Instagram caption. If I try, it does the experience no justice—and no one reads it anyway.

So we’re giving this blog a shot.

Here, you’ll get a better look at what actually goes down during race weekends, the prep leading up to them, and all the ridiculous stuff we come up with along the way. No promises that we’ll keep it updated—but hey, it’s free, so you get what you pay for.

Welcome to TSR. It’s going to be a party.

-Brennan