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The Thundersport 500 is a three-make motorcycle racing series organised by the UK Club Thundersport Ltd. Until 2009, the series was called the Honda CB500 Cup, before the rules were changed to allow the use of Kawasaki ER-5 and Suzuki GS500 motorcycles. Limited modifications are allowed and many are for safety reasons only.
Contents
History
Sébastien Charpentier dominated the inaugural French CB500 Cup in 1996. The UK series began a year later and was won by James Toseland, whose reward was a contract with the Castrol Honda European Supersport team. Honda France also took Charpentier to the European Supersport championship in 1998.
In 1998 the UK series saw the emergence of James Ellison, who went on to win two European Superstock 600 Championship titles, a British Superbike (BSB) Privateer title and World Endurance title, before moving to MotoGP.
Dropped as a British Superbike support class for 2000, the CB500 Cup was picked up by the New Era Motorcycle Club, who ran the class for a further 9 years until the club's closure at the end of 2008.
The French series also still runs to this day.