Pole Factory Racing Becomes Seton Tuning Downhill Team & Launches Team Fundraiser for 2024 Season

The former Pole Factory Racing team has become the Seton Tuning Downhill Team as the team owner aims to keep Onni Rainio and Dan Slack at World Cups this season after Pole filed for bankruptcy last month.

Ahead of the World Cup opening round this week at Fort William, Phil Seton, the team owner of the former Pole Factory Racing team has announced that he will be supporting Onni Rainio and Dan Slack himself. Currently, Phil Seton says he has the funding to support the two riders for the first two rounds with a fundraiser launched to hopefully secure enough to get them to all eight races this year.

We caught up with the team in the Fort William pits and were told by Phil Seton:

"After the events which occurred just a couple of weeks ago, we lost Pole, I am taking the team on myself and I'm the current team manager of Seton Tuning Downhill Team."

"There was a lot of hesitation as I had to think long and hard about the implications of my actions really. Pole was a direct-to-consumer brand and there were a lot of customers left without bikes that they had paid for. So I was very concerned that the association between myself and Pole could end up in a difficult situation. "

"After testing the water by putting out some information relating to the team I've had a very warm response and been incredibly supported by the community which I'm very grateful for."

On the launch of the fundraiser, Phil Seton said: "It's been quite well received so far, with lots and lots of donations. It has already made over 10% of what is necessary for us to complete the season in 36 hours which is incredible. We are really hopeful more people will want to get behind us and support the David up against the Goliaths in this massive field."

Looking at any future support from Pole, as the team will still be riding the frames previously supplied to them, we were told: "Basically Pole is no longer in existence so there's nothing which can come from Pole any further. We've been very fortunate from the supportive network in which we have found that there is someone who has some frames and is prepared to sell them to us. So this being the first start point for the rest of the season, in addition to that I will be talking to other brands to make sure that we can secure the future of the team and obviously, there's not going to be an expanse of other frames available after these ones so hopefully these will see us through the season and we will make other plans accordingly."

"You never know, it might well be that Pole rises from the ashes and comes back stronger and we can continue our relationship, but really I need to think about the future of my riders and make sure we have a plan B and C."

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After publishing our story on the team changes we have received the following comment from Pole founder Leo Kokkonen.

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You can find out more about the team fundraiser here.