At SuperCool we have built a culture of innovation, technical excellence, and dedication to providing exceptional services and products to our customers. Many of our achievements have pioneered new technologies within our industry that have earned us awards and accolades from industry and government, including the prestigious Australian Good Design Award in 2024. Our team is competent and open to continuous improvement in everything that we do, and our systems and processes are both rigid and flexible to suit the challenge of any situation. I am pleased to say we have achieved market leadership and a level of excellence that we can all be proud of.

However, none of this happens by accident. For sure, hard work and commitment are obvious, but motivation must come first, which is the important ingredient that underpins our achievements. Motivation can come to us in so many ways, but when formed from something inspirational is when the challenge at hand is the easiest.

I was lucky enough to be inspired at a very young age, and it was motorcycle racing that did it.

My father was a multiple Australian champion who met my mother when racing in Europe, and I was born during this time, on the Grand Prix circuits of a roaring and golden era of motorcycling racing in the 1950’s. My book The Sultan of Slide tells my father’s racing story in detail: Bob Mitchell The Sultan of Slide – a privateer’s story.

The influences from my father and his racing, and every other mechanical endeavour he pursued in his life, especially as a pioneer in establishing some of the first Nissan and Toyota car dealerships in Australia, instilled a strong realisation in me that to do something in life, it should be done with motivation to do your best and do it properly.

Establishing the SuperCool Competitions Department reflects this ethos and provides a chance for me to share with staff, friends and colleagues the excitement and challenge of putting a successful racing motorcycle on the racetrack. Our younger engineers can apply their engineering and technical skills to something different, and possibly learn some new skills, especially from our Crew Chief James Mott.  Our sales and warehouse staff have an opportunity to engage in the logistics and organisational skills required to succeed at racing, and everyone has an opportunity to have some fun which we should never forget in business or on the track.

In essence, putting a winning race machine into competition is no different from putting a successful business in the marketplace.

Initially, our focus will be historic motorcycle racing in the Period Four class, which is designated for machines manufactured between 1967 -1972.  So our challenge has the extra dimension of restoring and rebuilding classic machinery that was made over 50 years ago. This form of racing is sanctioned by MA (Motorcycling Australia) and the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) and is gaining global popularity. It is also very competitive.

In regard to competition, one of the great lessons my father gave me as a teenager after a race at Lakeside in Queensland, where I ran fourth in the state championship, I was dissatisfied and complained that I had done everything possible but couldn’t catch the front group. My father responded by saying if I truly believed I had ridden my best and prepared the machine as best as I could, then I had won fourth place. If I had not done either of these to my best, then perhaps my fourth place was not a win.

This message has stayed with me all of my life, and it is my wish and hope that the SuperCool Competitions Department can deliver the same to everyone we come into contact with during this exciting new chapter.

– Mark Mitchell, April 2026