This news was a most welcome breath of fresh juiciness – a story which has to be related is something delectable to a writer; it cannot be resisted. This is such a piece.
It seems that Dorna, the rights holder of the FIM MotoGP World Championship series, has offered the resurrected Norton marque two spots on the grid in the 2012 season. That, as everyone reading this no doubt already knows very well, will also coincide with the series rule change which will allow an upper displacement limit of 1000cc from the current 800. As of this writing it is not known if Norton has accepted this offer, but…
Stuart Garner, CEO of Norton, has said that he most definitely has positive leanings for his company to take to the world’s Grand Prix circuits. It will all depend on the expenses involved and the ability of the British company to actually benefit financially from returning to the world stage again. If you look closely at how Norton is built – the company, and to some extent the bikes – it is obviously possible. After all, the storied marque would have somewhere around 90% of British moto-racing fans, plus untold numbers of other aficionados living worldwide, in their corner ready, willing and able to purchase 
motorcycles, crew shirts, jackets, replica helmets, etc. with the Norton brand all over it – with Norton (obviously) receiving some revenue to cover the costs of their MotoGP effort. That could lead to stability for the factory and a long term occupation for everyone connected to the company.
Further good news is the incredible potential (would you allow kinetic?) engineering capacity close at hand to the company’s Castle Donington location. The heart and soul of Formula One research and development is a short ride away in what is often called ‘Motorsport Valley’ in the UK. Today’s drawing-board to track times are far shorter than they have ever been. Norton could get a solid racing bike up and ready for shakedown in skunkworks fashion quite readily – if the money is there to be spent.
And, lest it be too much understated, there is that great racing byproduct: with the engineering effort a factory must put into racing at that level, the street-legal product gets much better. Technology benefits significantly from this – and, by extension,
the Norton customer.
However, it is also easy to work very hard and get very few good results – see the Kawasaki and Suzuki MotoGP teams. Each and every one of the people involved in those efforts was and is as passionate, skilled and dedicated as anyone else in the paddock; it’s very tough, and very expensive, to be at the razor’s edge of racing technology.
If they can get the support and field a competitive race bike, it will be a beautiful thing to see Norton line up at the first MotoGP of 2012. There may be another King of England coming to a track near you…
