History of John Eastwood -

My racing career began with a National Supersport 400 race. I accomplished this after only one single test session on the bike! I managed to finish in the top 10 in this inaugural race, which seeing as this was the second time I had ever been on a road bike pleased me greatly! I then continued my progress by winning my first race within a month and was able to be a regular top 5 finisher in this Championship for the rest of the season.

In 2003 I bought a Yamaha R1 and competed in the National Powerbike series. Unfortunately I was only able to afford to compete in 6 rounds of the championship. Despite this I was able to achieve consistently fast lap times and solid finishes and therefore brought an overall satisfactory season of racing.
In 2004 I moved up and decided to compete in the National Superstock Championship on a Suzuki GSXR 1000. Again I was able to be very competitive as well as finishing in the top 10 on a number of occasions, unfortunately due to an accident, I was forced to finish the season after only competing in the first 5 rounds. Although my season came to a premature end I was happy with the way it had gone especially after seeing that I was able to compete against very experienced riders, some of which had been racing for over 15 years.
For 2005 I made the decision to compete in the Virgin Yamaha R6 cup. The idea of this Cup is to develop the rider’s ability and eventually produce a winner who receives a Factory Superbike ride for the official Yamaha Team the following season. For me this season was by far my most difficult and arduous. Due to my knee injury from the previous season I had not had any time to practice during the off season, which meant by the time I turned up at the first round I had not ridden a bike for 8 months. Throughout the season I gained confidence and speed because of such a slow start due to the recovery process of my knee I never realized the results that I expected to achieve.
The 2007 season brought about a change of class. From the production based 600 to an out and out race bike that is a GP 250. I entered the British 250gp championship on a Yamaha TZ 250 riding for Moto UK racing. We started the season with a 3 day test in Cartagena.

Getting to grips with a GP specification bike was a massive learning curve but an awful lot of fun. I quickly got my head around the 250 and by the end of day one I was lapping in times that would put me on the front of a Euro 250 grid.