Manx roads specialist Dan Kneen has been left high and dry after his deal with the Millsport Suzuki team for this year fell apart.

The 27-year-old Braddan rider is now on the hunt for a new ride after he was informed by the team they were pulling out of racing.

Kneen has been a permanent fixture in the top ten of the International road races since 2009 - a year after he became the first man to take a hat-trick at the Manx Grand Prix - but 2014 saw him soar to new heights as he performed brilliantly on the Burrows Engineering machines.

Winning numerous races on the Irish roads saw him comfortably clinch the Irish Superbike Road Race Championship but his finest moment came at the Ulster Grand Prix when he won the Superstock race for his first ever International race victory.

I’m absolutely gutted to find myself without a ride for 2015 and from what appeared to be superb opportunity has now turned into a nightmare. Having secured the deal with Millsport Racing last year was a real weight off my shoulders and although things had gone a bit quiet these last couple of months, the team assured me in January everything was still very much in place and we’d soon be going testing as planned. However, that suddently changed last week when I got a message from them telling me it was all off due to a lack of finance,” said Kneen.

“Having had my best ever season in 2014 makes it even harder to take and it’s left me high and dry and with not a lot of time left to get something new sorted. I’ve been speaking to as many people as I can ever since I got the news but obviously there aren’t as many options as there were before. I’m back to the drawing board but, after such a strong 2014, I really want to continue that form and improve my results further still so if there’s anyone that can help, please get in touch.”