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Two-stroke fans were stoked to hear of Suter Racing building a 500GP-styled superbike smoker, the Suter MMX 500. The 576cc, V4, two-stroke machine promises superbike power coupled to a GP-level punching weight, 195hp and 280 lbs respectively, with modern suspension and chassis design.

Only 99 specimens of the Suter MMX 500 will be produced though, each costing CHF 120,000 – roughly $125,000 or €109,000. And now, one of those machines has been tapped for racing duty, as Suter will be competing in the 2016 Isle of Man TT.

Therefore, expect to see the Suter MMX 500 racing in the RST Superbike and PokerStars Senior TT races, with Ian Lougher behind the handlebars.

Suter will not be competing in the Moto2 championship in 2016. In an official statement on their Facebook page, the Swiss engineering firm announced that it would not be applying for a constructor’s license for Moto2 in 2016.

Instead, Suter will be concentrating its efforts on working with Mahindra on their Moto3 machine, and supplying a range of parts for various teams and factories in the series.

The withdrawal from Moto2 was an inevitable consequence of the steady decline in the number of bikes Suter was producing for the class.

The veil has finally been removed for the relaunching of Suter’s two-stroke grand prix track bike, now named the Suter MMX 500. As expected, the machine gets a modest makeover visually, and appears to remain largely unchanged mechanically.

Officially making 195hp at 13,000 rpm, the Suter MMX 500 weighs a paltry 280 pounds (127kg). For that kind of power-to-weight ratio, you are going to have to spend some serious coin, 120,000 CHF ($123,360 in today’s money). Only 99 examples of this machine will be built – all to customer-spec, of course.

That price tag gets you a 576cc two-stroke V4 engine, that has a 56 x 58.5mm bore and stroke, double counter-rotating crankshafts, and electronic fuel injection. Suter says that power plant is good to get the MMX 500 up to a true 195 mph (310 km/h).

Suter hopes that interested buyers will field their machine in the GP Bike Legends series, which pits two-stroke era racers back on their smokey machines. We’re not so sure about that, but the Suter MMX 500 is easily the ultimate track day queen.

We may live in a four-stroke era, but the enthusiast-factor for two-strokes is extremely strong. One look at the popularity of our story on the Suter MMX500, a bike that hasn’t even been launched yet (or is that, re-launched?), confirms as much.

Narrow powerbands, high horsepower figures, and featherlight weights are three key ingredients to the strength of two-strokes. Huffing pre-mix helps too.

To help fuel that fire, no pun intended, we bring you this highly suspicious video of the Suter MMX500 “caught” testing. It seems staged, and that’s fine, just show us the damn bike already. Ra-dinnnng-a-ding-ding!

Suter Racing’s 500cc V4 two-stroke track bike project is back, in case you didn’t hear. Now called the Suter MMX 500, the ~200hp / 284 lbs motorcycle is set to debut again, as the Swiss firm gears up for the World GP Bike Legends event.

Presumably, not too much has changed on the GP-inspired machine, though we can expect to see an updated set of bodywork, suspension, and other farkles. At the core will remain that beautiful pre-mix consuming engine, in its V4 configuration.

We say presumably, because Suter is staying tight-lipped on this project, simply teasing the Suter MMX 500 with a dedicated website and with dyno-run soundtrack. So…stay tuned.

In the meantime, we have seriously just copy-and-pasted the same photos and information that was available four years. At least we’re honest.

A revolution is about to take place at Ducati, several reliable sources are reporting. The Bologna factory’s new owners Audi are pushing through wholesale changes, both MotoSprint and Moto.it are reporting, which include relieving Filippo Preziosi of his responsibility for Ducati’s MotoGP project and embarking on a parallel project to have Suter build a new chassis for the bike.

Who is to take the place of Preziosi at the head of Ducati Corse is unclear, but the name of Paolo Ciabatti, currently involved in World Superbikes and previously head of Ducati’s WSBK team, is being mentioned.

According to the reports in the Italian press, the removal of Preziosi is part of a wholesale reorganization of Ducati’s MotoGP project. The structure is to be altered to make it more ‘Japanese’ with the work divided up into separate divisions, and without tight central control of all aspects.

Suter has been commissioned by Audi to build a new chassis for the Ducati as part of a separate, parallel project to try to improve the bike.

Asphalt & Rubber is based out of California, so that means smoking is akin to a cardinal sin out here, and on the hierarchy of egregious crimes against humanity, it ranks just slightly under torturing babies with hot pincers (heaven forbid you cause a baby to start smoking).

Smoking indoors in outright verboten virtually everywhere, while puffing some nicotine anywhere outside that is near a restaurant, bar, club, ATM, hospital, pre-school, or tobacco shop is liable to cause a citizen to go murder-death-kill on you John Spartan.

The issue is so pervasive here, that it has even extended beyond cigarettes and into the realm of motorcycling, with The Golden State leading the charge on the banning of two-stroke motorcycles.

We are now purely a “suck, squeeze, bang, blow” society, and while that suits many motorists just fine, there are some who enjoy the smell of pre-mix in the morning — you know who you are.

You enjoy the sound of angry bees following you from apex to off-camber. You think a displacement for “serious riders” starts at around 250cc. You like your engine compression low, and your powerbands narrow. You sir (or madam), are a two-stroke junky, and we have just the fix you need.

Just as MotoGP replaced 500GP, we know see Moto2 & Moto3 replacing the lower two-stroke classes that remained in Grand Prix racing. Leading the charge on this mechanical front are a slew of new companies, most notably the chassis manufacturers, of which Suter is perhaps the most well-regarded.

Making the weapon of choice for Marc Marquez in Moto2 this year, the Swiss company already had a sterling reputation before it went racing at an international level, but the firm’s success in the 2010 Championship exposed it to a whole new world of tw0-wheel performance.

Having a bevy of intriguing two-wheeled projects within its walls, the Swiss bike that catches our eye today is the Suter 500 Factory V4: a two-stroke, 500cc, V4, track weapon that puts out over 200 hp and weighs 284 lbs ready to race — no, that is not a typo.

We’ll let you take a moment before continuing past the jump for more.

When the guidelines for the 2012 MotoGP season were released, a new class of motorcycle was allowed entry into the top series of motorcycle racing. Allowing the use of production-based motors in prototype chassis, claiming rule teams will be able to enter into the series theoretically for much less money than non-factory teams could in the past, which is a move by Dorna to bolster the GP grid size.

One of the first firms to jump on the opportunity is Suter Racing Technology, the maker of one of the more popular chassis being used in Moto2 this season. Using a BMW S1000RR motor as the power plant, the prototype race bike is based heavily off Suter’s MMX Moto2 bike.

Eskil Suter is a popular man in the Moto2 paddock. Not only is his Moto2 chassis one of the cheapest, but it’s also one of the best performing units. It should be no surprise then that his Moto2 solution (shown above) is one of the most popular in the race series, and Suter sees that as a great jumping off point to enter back into the MotoGP fray (Suter helped engineer the Kawasaki ZX-RR, the Ilmor X3, and the Petronas FP1 SBK race bikes).

With the MotoGP rules in 2012 to allow for claiming rule teams, the door has been opened for a Moto2 styled team (production motor in a prototype frame) to play with the big boys. Suter for his part is looking to draw on his current chassis success, and base his design around the very potent BMW S1000RR motor. The result should be a fairly inexpensive solution to a high-performance race bike as the S1000RR has been popping up on the internet with 190hp stock.