Newman racing

Gryphon has proudly sponsored Newman Racing over the last 4 years. You’ve seen their photos online and even in our catalogue and on our website, but we have never formally shared their story.

Kyle and Melanie are two Ontario riders that form Newman Racing. The team officially took shape for the 2019 season after running separate programs and are continuing to charge forward for 2025. But let's go back to the beginning of how it all began.
 
Melanie was born into a motorcycling family, with her parents and grand parents both being avid riders. It was never a question that she would follow suit. She started on a Honda Z50 Mini Trail, then moved to a XL185 and eventually would throw a leg

over her uncles CRF450R. During this time, she would often go all out on the families Yamaha 200 Tri-Moto. Machines that are very uncommon now due to being banned in the 1980's after high numbers of accidents.
 
When Melanie wasn't at the family farm riding around, she was busy plastering her bedroom walls with photos cut out from Cycle Canada magazine and signed posters she had collected from the motorcycle shows. If it had a sport bike on it, she wanted it on display. In middle school she wrote a report of where she saw her life in 20 years, and it was owning multiple motorcycles and being a professional racer.

On her 16th birthday, Melanie’s grandfather took her out school early to get her M1 license, and two weeks later she took the M2 course. Like her older brothers, the first street bike that she would ride would be her dads Goldwing, but that did not last long. After her first parking lot stint on the rolling couch, she decided to get something a bit sportier. She picked up a 1984 VFR500 Interceptor for $1000 and rode it for 3 years as her only vehicle. Covering many miles, generating many smiles, meeting Kyle, and creating a few questionable moments in history. She then upgraded to a Honda 599 Hornet,

which was unfortunately short lived due to some overzealous riding. Being in university, the bus became the financially wise choice for a while.

After a couple years of being without her own bike, she decided to fulfill her dream of racing and in 2014 picked up an old Kawasaki ZX-6R for the racetrack. It was far from pretty, but it was all hers. She had previously taken the FAST course at Shannonville in 2011 and had done a track day at Grand Bend in 2012. For the next year she did a handful of track days before joining the SOAR grids in 2015. Her first season racing was definitely nothing to write home about, being lapped every race, sometimes twice. But she was happy to be on track, learning more and more with every lap. Eventually she picked up the pace and began progressing quicker and quicker, and her bikes got prettier and prettier. If she couldn’t be the fastest out there, she might as well have the best looking machines. In 2017 she sold the Ninja and moved on to a Honda CBR600RR. She made immediate improvements and was awarded the Most Improved Rider that season at the annual banquet.

With continuous improvements throughout the 2021 season, Melanie won the Formula Femme championship in dominating fashion and took home third overall in the Lost Era Heavyweight class. For 2022 she upgraded to a newer CBR600RR and spent the better portion of the season learning the new bike the hard way, but thankfully her Gryphon gear kept her safe and in one piece. For 2023, steady progress was made with some respectable race finishes and personal bests being set every layout. In 2024, with the help of Kyle's coaching, she continued to set faster lap times on every layout and completed every SOAR round on the podium. By the end of the season, it had been confirmed that her life long goal of becoming a Pro was achieved and in doing so she became the first female racer with SOAR to ever do it.

Photo by: SS Trackside

Kyle's entry to motorcycle's was less obvious as he did not come from a riding family. Kyle became interested in bikes when he was in college and got his license at 21. He started out on a Hyosung GT250R and riding seemed to come naturally to him. Every Sunday Kyle and a small group of friends would head out in search of twisty roads, and great views, all the while racking up the miles. Meeting more and more people in the riding community, and motorcycle industry, led Kyle and Melanie to meet at a rider gathering in 2011. That year, he upgraded to a Kawasaki ZX-6R, took his first trip to Deal’s Gap, and ended the season taking Turn2 track school at Calabogie Motorsports Park. After more miles, more street bikes, and some trips to the track, Kyle decided to leave the road behind and go racing in 2014.

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Kyle started his racing career with SOAR on a Honda F4i, taking home the rookie class championship in his first season. He switched over to a more competitive Yamaha R6 for the next two seasons and ended up winning the Lost Era Lightweight championship, at both SOAR and RACE Super Series, in 2016. In 2017 he moved to a Suzuki GSX-R600 and took home more wins and top 5 championship finishes, which promoted him to the Pro class for the following season. The 2019 season saw Kyle ride very consistently and win the SOAR Pro 600 championship. In 2021 he upgraded to a Honda CBR1000RR superbike for an exciting change of pace and in 2023 and 2024 he won the SOAR Pro Open Sprint championship.

During this time Kyle also began racing Enduros with Offroad Ontario. First on a 4 stroke Honda 250, and now on a 2 stroke Beta 250. He won the Intermediate B champion for 2022 and 2023 and competed in the Intermediate A category for 2024. He has completed the Corduroy Enduro 5 times and competed 3 times in the Northeast 24hr Challenge in New York.

Kyle also started street riding again in 2021 by building a custom Suzuki SV650 from the frame up, and now rides a Ducati Hyperstrada. Outside of their own riding, Kyle and Mel are instructors on track with the Racer5 program, and street licensing instructors with Georgian College.

Follow along with their racing and riding on Instagram and Facebook @NewmanRacing
To partner with the team, please e-mail them at [email protected]