Popular Pinetown motorcycle and Jet Ski dealership Hooked Up Motorsport has joined the Kawasaki family in South Africa, selling Kawasaki and Sym motorcycles, scooters and jet skis as well as the extensive range of other products imported and distributed by KMSA. “Who better to sell and maintain our motorcycles and personal watercraft than 12 times South African motorcycle road-racing champion Russell Wood and double jet ski world champion Ricky Sneddon?” asks KMSA’s managing director Chris Speight. “They both know their stuff when it comes to bikes and jet skis and they’re very competent businessmen, so we’re very happy indeed to have them on our side.”
Russell, who won his dozen South African 250 GP and Superbike road racing titles between 1984 and 2003, founded the Muscle and Fitness gym group while he was still racing and is today well known as a very successful businessman and property owner. Ricky, who manages the day-to-day affairs at Hooked Up Motorsports enjoyed a successful motocross career that earned him multiple Natal and Transvaal championships before switching to the jet skis that brought him 18 South African and two world championships. He later worked as national sales manager for Fox Motocross Gear for eight years before opening Hooked Up with Russell two years ago.
“We’ve been trading for two years now, and with Kawasaki and Sym on board our product range is nicely rounded off” says Ricky. “If the racetrack that Russell’s negotiating at the old Durban airport works out he will do customer track days and give rider training and I’ll be buying myself a ZX-10!”
Russell’s first international superbike race was on a Kawasaki and it was his passion for motorcycle racing that brought the dealership about. ”I sponsor Blaze Baker on his Kawasaki ZX-6R, and he wrote off the bike I’d bought him at the nationals in East London. We needed another bike so I phoned Kawasaki’s MD, Chris Speight, to see if he could help us out and he did. He and I then ended up talking about a dealership and here we are. It’s great for us because there’s a big Kawasaki following in the highway area that we haven’t until now had access to. Our shop started two years ago with 200 m2 of floor-space and virtually no yard space, and it now covers almost 1000 m2 so we have room to grow. The Kawasaki association will allow us to do a whole lot better, and our workshop, spares and accessories will all get a very useful boost.”
Hooked Up Motorsports can be found behind the Knowles centre at 22 Chancery Lane in Pinetown. They can be contacted on 031-7012400 and r 
