ISLANDER Nick Allison will join 14 UK motorcyclists to race against hosts Australia and New Zealand later this month – but the Brits will be riding on borrowed bikes.

Allison should have been racing on his Kawasaki 1170 bike in the International Challenge for the Trans-Pacific Trophy.

He explained why he won’t do so: ‘I was asked to join the team after the manager saw me racing at Cadwell Park last year – but the ship carrying the bikes has broken down somewhere off Singapore.

The shipping company said there’s no chance that it will be fixed in time to get the bikes to Australia by 28 January.’ The bikes were loaded into a container in November, to be ready for racing on Phillip Island, home of the Australian GP circuit, a few miles off the coast of Melbourne.

‘It’s a famous course, and very fast – after the start, the first corner is approached virtually blind at over 160 mph,’ Allison said.

‘That’ll get the adrenaline pumping! ‘It was a real honour to have been asked to join the UK team – and we’ve now heard from the Australians that they have managed to find 12 bikes we can use for racing – but of course they won’t have been set up especially for us, like our own bikes had been.’ The UK finished third last year with 203 points, Australia winning with 435 points.

‘We don’t know yet what sort of bikes they’ve found for us – we do know they have organised some hire bikes, modern Triumphs, for us to use before the races, so we can get to know the course.

We could have pulled out, but having got this far with the organisation and already spent more than £1,000 each to get there, we decided to go anyway, and try and give them a race,’ Allison said.

n The team leaves the UK on 22 January and practice and qualifying starts on Friday 27 January.

Nick Allison is seeking sponsorship for this event.

If anyone is interested he can be contacted on mobile 07797 715148.