Castle Donington, UK Norton Motorcycles reached an important milestone this week with the successful completion of the durability and emission testing for its Commando 961 series of motorcycles. With the Certification Lab’s successful completion and compliance report, the challenging technical testing portion of the approval process for the U.S. and Canadian of the Norton Commando 961 Cafe Racer, 961 Sport and 961 SE models has concluded. The durability testing is carried out by a certified testing laboratory and at specific intervals during its 15,000 kilometre accumulation the bikes are tested to ensure compliance with EPA and CARB exhaust, noise and evaporative emissions. The lab’s testing is also completes a significant durability and safety trial. The new Norton’s passed and exceeded all standards by a wide margin. While this news which may seem a bit boring and technical in nature to the average motorcyclist, it is extremely challenging and it is the first approval sought by the new Norton Motorcycles to bring bikes to North America and a critical milestone for a specialty manufacturer like Norton. Next steps are now a matter of paperwork and response from three federal and state government agencies. Included is NHSTA’s safety and compliance documentation, plus the certification testing review and processing by the U.S. EPA and the California Air Resources Board. The agencies are notoriously slow, but every effort has been made to accelerate the process. Subsequent to EPA and CARB approval, Norton must then send similar applications to each individual state, a process that can only begin after EPA and CARB approvals are received. The factory, located within the Donington Grand Prix Circuit, is ready and waiting to begin production of U.S. and Canadian 2013 models, and to deliver the bikes to these markets which will likely be Norton’s largest. Visit www.nortonmotorcycles.com for all the latest news about Norton Motorcycles and recent manufacturing expansion at the Norton factory.