About Me

My names Matt Bilton, I'm 20 years old and I've lived in Mirfield, West Yorkshire all my life.

I've always been interested in bikes but also love to do some down hill mountain biking in the woods local to my house. I have also skied since being 6 years old and now love to hit the terrain parks at the resorts I visit each winter.

I left Castle Hall School in September 06 after getting 11 GCSE passes, 5 of which were at grade B. I currently doing a plumbing apprentiship but focusing on my passion, racing bikes.

I got my first bike at 10, a PW80, then at 12 I got my first minimoto and started racing. At 14 I moved onto 110 pit bike racing firstly doing the winter series. After only riding on Tarmac it was a big change to suddenley be on a supermoto style track with dirt and tarmac. During the summer I raced in the Open class with Phoenix Racing, although I was racing against adults at age 15 I won the open British 110 pit bike Championship.

I had almost 12 months off riding any bikes, apart from a couple of races on a supermoto, with Nora.

Then in October 2006 I got to ride a SV650 belonging to ex racer and local mechanic and tuner ( HB Motorcyles). At the beginning of 2007 my Dad bought me an R6 and although the intention was to race both bikes after a couple of meetings swapping from one to the other I decided to concentrate on the R6.

During the summer of 2007 I  tried to do as many meetings as possible to get as much track time as I could. I did meetings with Bemsee, New Era, Auto 66, Derby Phoenix, and Wirral 100.

I started the summer on an 04 R6 that had belonged to an ex club racer, I had some good results on it, but then the engine blew, so that we could continue racing whilst we got the bike repaired my dad bought a completely standard 05 R6. We took it straight off the road onto the track and again I got some good results but often found that my bike was not as competitive as the other 600's I was racing against. It was all good experience and as the summer wore on I felt my riding and confidence grow. Towards the end of the summer we got the 04 R6 back with the 117bhp that it had previously. My next few meetings out on this bike saw a succession of good results.

At the end of summer 07 I got an 06 R6 that again has just been taken off the road, the engine loosened up nicely and we put Maxton suspensions on it. I did the last few race meetings of the 07 season on it and on the last one really felt I was getting to grips with it. I managed to go 2 seconds faster on my new R6 with 112bhp than I had gone on the 04 R6 with 117bhp.

After testing at Cartegena, Spain in November, we decided to go to the Bristish Superbikes Championship in the new SuperStock 600 class. After further testing in Cartegena in January 2008, I tried to get some early season practice by going to Cadwell in March. Bad weather conditions played a part in me crashing and breaking my collar bone - 2 weeks before the start of the BSB season. Full details of 2009  season  and a link to previous seasons are on the 2009 season page.

After finishing the 2009 season in overall 5th position, 2010 has got off to a great start with plenty of testing to get used to the new bike, a Kawasaki ZX6R, with AP Kawasaki, the team I will be racing for in the 2010 season.