Londonbiker's Andrew and Damon (Silver) attended British Superbikes round six at Mallory Park last weekend, to bring you all the latest photo's. Andrew also met up with the Hawk Kawasaki Team for an exclusive interview with Londonbikers. Andrew managed to have a chat weth Dean Thomas and Peter Hickman just after 4pm, following BSB qualifying.
Hawk Racing was founded by Team Principal Stuart Hicken in 1996. Since its inception Hawk Racing has grown from a one-rider 600 Supersport team to become Kawasaki’s official entry in the world-renowned British Superbike Championship, and one of the most competitive and professional squads in the paddock. The team has three riders, 33 year old Australian Dean Thomas, British born Peter Hickman, who is 19 and 25 year old Craig Coxhell, another Australian.
Andrew: Mondello Park first of all, cancelled due to bad weather, how did you feel about that? Was it the right decision?
Dean Thomas: Yes it was the right decision. I don’t have a problem with it as it (Mondello Park) doesn’t suit the way I ride. It was definitely the right thing to do, I mean I’ve raced in wet conditions all over the world and the problem with Mondello is that the actual race track is lower than the grass so all the water runs off the grass onto the track, rather than the other way around. There were big puddles of water everywhere and by yourself it was almost bearable but racing with 20 or 30 bikes it was just too dangerous. I can understand that it was a big decision from them to take...
Andrew: It was the first time they’ve ever done that wasn’t it ? (cancelled a meet)
Dean Thomas: It had to be done, the meteorologists were sure (it was going to continue).
Andrew: Yeah, a big decision though considering the sponsorship money and TV coverage. So how did the weather there compare to the bad weather at Donnington?
Dean Thomas: At least at Donnington, though it was heavy rain and freezing cold, it was only really bad in one place on the track.
Andrew: How do you guys cope with the cold and wet? You wear a waterproof ‘bag’ yes, but your hands and feet must get cold and wet…
Dean Thomas: Yeah, freezing. Couldn’t feel my fingers...
Andrew: Perhaps we could make winter gloves for racers eh Dean?
Dean Thomas: Yeah you need them, especially in this country (laughs).
Andrew: So there are double points up for grabs at the last race as a result of Mondello being cancelled. Do you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
Dean Thomas: I think it’s a good thing! I go well around Brands anyway and so it’s definitely a good thing. It’s at the end of the year, the bike will have been developed more by then and so the more points we can score the better. Whether they needed to do it or not is debatable.
Andrew: Agreed, surely it’s a question of who has the most points at the end of the season, not how many you have?
Dean Thomas: It (the Championship) was always only 12 rounds, it’s just the last 3 or 4 years that have been 13, perhaps it (cancelling a round) could have been an issue then but now?
Andrew: After talking to some of the racers on Londonbikers.com, they suggested that there might be a bit of last minute corner kamikaze tactics with so many points gain.
Dean Thomas: But it’s also a lot of points to lose!
Andrew: Do you talk to the other riders very much? Is it fairly close knit community?
Dean Thomas: It’s very difficult to get a lot of time to talk to them really, by the time we’re all packed up you do get time to mix with some of them, but you do get on with every single one of them.
Andrew: So if someone cuts you up is it all handshakes after work?
Dean Thomas: Yeah you might have a dig, but the difference is that you don’t hold a grudge. By the next round it’s all over and it’s business as normal.
Andrew: That’s the way it should be, I mean you’re all out there and ultimately have the same to lose.
Dean Thomas: Exactly. Some sports aren’t that way, but British Superbikes is.
Andrew: Have you made any changes to the bike today, and how did it go this afternoon compared to this morning?
Dean Thomas: Superb, we’ve been getting quicker all weekend. We started here at a 57.5 (seconds a lap) and now we’re down to a 56.1 so we’re making progress (Dean actually qualified with a 56.2 according to MST Timings). The only problem we have is that there is a quite small window of opportunity to work in and we don’t have a massive amount of new parts to test so we do find that we are going over the same old things. There’s not a huge amount we can do about these things .
Andrew: So do you think running three bikes is an advantage ? Maybe there are less parts to go around, but you can test more options?
Dean Thomas: Yeah but we’ve got two guys running 06 bikes, and one guy running an 05 bike which has been fully developed anyway so, I don’t really feel that we have any advantage there.
Andrew: So who’s running the 05 bike?
Dean Thomas: Peter, and since it’s last year’s bike, he’s doing a good job, and providing the funding doesn’t dry up I don’t think it (the 3 bikes) will be an issue really.
Andrew: I can’t think of many other teams running 3 bikes.
Dean Thomas: (Pause for thinking) Err... Vivaldi, but then again they’ve got the budget for it.
Andrew: All from potatoes!
Dean Thomas: Yeah, and a Supersport rider so really it’s 4 bikes, all from potatoes.
Andrew: Go figure?
Dean Thomas: Well he (the owner of Vivaldi) has an interest in Motorsport, he is involved in the Touring Cars as well and it’s good to see some new money in the series.
Andrew: (Turns to Damon), Well maybe potatoes are where we should be? More fruit and veg. Perhaps some broccoli sponsorship. It would even go with your (green) leathers?
Dean Thomas: (Dean cracks up laughing) Can you imagine?
Andrew: But you’ll all be as healthy as hell!
Andrew: New modifications. Are there any? Particularly for this race?
Dean Thomas: No not really, we’ve made a few small mods this week but to be honest we’ve pretty much ended up back where we were, we’ve got an upgraded engine but it’s not really any faster than the old one, just a bit more refined. The rest of the bike is pretty much the same as Mondello and Oulton Park. The issue at the moment is that we don’t really have any development parts to put in the bike.
Andrew: So it’s not leaps and bounds at the moment then!
Dean Thomas: No exactly so at the moment we have to make do with what we’ve got and we’ll always do the best we can.
Andrew: So how does the ‘parts chain’ work, I mean do you speak directly to Kawasaki?
Dean Thomas: Yeah we do, but not at the same level the say Honda or Ducati (teams) do, but Kawasaki deal with us. Their WSB teams and the American teams (AMA), but the American series has different rules to us so their bikes don’t really apply to us (presumably their test results can’t be applied to UK teams), and the WSB teams run on Pirellis (Hawk use Dunlops) so the settings they use don’t really apply to us which makes it very hard to compare notes. There is really only one Kawasaki team in each series which does slow down progress for us, we speak to Chris (Walker who was floating around on race day) and Stuart (owner) speaks to their top men but the swingarm, links and springs that Chris uses are different to ours.
Andrew: So it may have the same badge on the tank but….
Dean Thomas: Yeah it’s a little difficult to compare, but Kawasaki do the best they can but it’s really down to us to get the best out the bike and as I say a lot of that depends on the funding; the more you have the quicker you can develop the bike. But it’s real difficult, you’ve got 3 factory bikes from Japan, 2 from Italy so that’s 5 bikes that are gonna be real hard to get in front of, and then there are the Rizla bikes that buy parts direct from Japan too, so really it’s 7 bikes to start with, and then Michael Rutter and Laverty on the Stobart bikes…..
Andrew: So tenth is a good result then?
Dean Thomas: Yeah! We are doing really well considering, Stuart (team manager) wants to be winning races, and I do too, and it really frustrates me that we’re not.
Andrew: Yeah it must do, so how do you handle that? Do you treat it as a learning curve and get used to it or…..?
Dean Thomas:Ha ha... I’ve been learning for 20 years, I don’t want to learn anymore, I want to get out there and win but at the end of the day you have to just get out there and do the best with what you’ve got.
Dean Thomas: So have you ridden the zx10r on the road? It’s got a reputation as a bit of a wild beast.
Dean Thomas: It’s a brilliant bike, it’s fast, it handles well. As a road bike, which it’s designed to be, it’s one of the best road bikes out there. I’ve ridden the road bike, not on the roads but on a race track and it was brilliant.
Andrew: Does the wildness translate into the race bike, or is it all dialled out?
Dean Thomas: No no, it’s still there, obviously we push the chassis to the limit and perhaps the rear suspension needs us to work on it to get 100% optimum grip out of it but on road bike it would never ever be an issue as they are better than they’ll ever need to be.
Andrew: It’s kinda of embarrassing, humiliating almost when you get on these bikes…
Dean Thomas: Yeah, a perfect example is the superstocks (basically std bikes) where the 10R won last year, which shows that the basic bike does the job.
Andrew: All it needs is loads of money thrown at it!
Dean Thomas: Yeah, if you threw the kinda of money that Honda and Ducati do, we’d be running at the front.
Andrew: Ok, how do you find the new changes to the circuit ?
Dean Thomas: I’m actually enjoying the new changes, as a sole rider I think it’s good to break up Gerrards, it suits the rest of the race track. But a racer, to see 30 other race bikes piling into their it’s gonna be a nightmare. It’s too narrow and it’s too tight so it’s not the right chicane to be putting into that track, but as a single bike running around there it’s good fun. That’s not the issue here though, the whole circuit isn’t safe to be running Superbikes, the bus stop and the chicane, the whole track is not safe.
Andrew: Yeah it’s a bit narrow….
Dean Thomas: We’re chasing out tails. The chicane may make it safer but it’s the other end of the racetrack that I feel, is worse.
Andrew: We/ I’ve been a bit surprised by the lack of fencing which is great for spectators but …
Dean Thomas: Well take the bus stop where they’ve patched the track, it’s bumpy and right on the line so there are going to be more crashes there. (There were 3 that we heard of during the day).
Andrew: So do you guys have much say in these things?
Dean Thomas: No.
Andrew: I’m thinking like in Formula 1, where they have a drivers committee type group...
Dean Thomas: Well I don’t know who they did ask, but they didn’t ask us if we thought the track was safe or not, I certainly wasn’t asked.
Andrew: There must come a point as the bikes get developed over the years, and get faster that the circuits should be re-evaluated?
Dean Thomas: I agree.
Andrew: It may have been safe 10 years ago, but now….
Dean Thomas: There are 2 or 3 tracks in this country that theoretically we shouldn’t race at - but why do we run a 13 round series? We could run 11 and ditch those tracks.
Andrew: All comes down to money again I guess. TV deals, advertising etc - some one is raking it in somewhere... haha.
Dean Thomas: Should give some to us.
Andrew: Trackdays... What sort of advice would you give novices?
Dean Thomas: The thing with trackdays is not to go in there and pretend to be a racer, but to learn how to ride properly. For instance I can guarantee you that every rider will overshoot a corner on the road at some stage but the track is the place to learn what to do in that situation. If you can apply what you learn on the race track, then you’ll have a much better chance of surviving that kinda of thing.
Andrew: Have you Dean ever done any trackday instruction work?
Dean Thomas: Yeah, I spent many years instructing some years ago and I’ve seen it all. People often come on the track after they’ve been riding a few years and had a few crashes so their confidence is down. On the track you can build their confidence back up, they’re happier that they know what they did wrong and why they crashed on the road and they can go away and know not to do it again. Take the trackday for what it is, but if you’re gonna take your road bike and try to turn it into a race bike (meaning by riding it like it is one) you’re gonna hurt yourself and wreck your bike.
Andrew: Looking around the bikes today I don’t see many crash bungs on them, what do you think to them?
Dean Thomas: For us, if the bike slides onto the grass it’ll dig and spit it straight up. We’d rather put new fairings on and replace the bits that are snapped. So it’s not a priority for us. On a road bike, on the road, yeah fair enough they’ll save a lot of damage.
Andrew: So what about those guys and gals that have done several trackdays already and fancy getting a bit quicker, what would you suggest is the best thing for them to do? Suspension adjustments etc ?
Dean Thomas: Buy a track bike. I wouldn’t go ride a road bike fast around a track. Eventually you’re gonna get caught out and it’ll cost a lot of money.
Andrew: and for the intermediates? is it worth them tweaking their bikes a little?
Dean Thomas: To a point. Having your suspension sorted by an expert might make you lap a little quicker but it won’t make you ride any better. You just need to ride more for that to happen. For instance, we were riding in the 58s today, then we changed the suspension settings and got into 56s. We were riding exactly the same. Just the bike was quicker. So I wouldn’t worry about the stop watches and all that, just enjoy it. If you are riding hard and having a good time, that’s what it’s about. If you’ve the budget to spend then fair enough.
Andrew: So do you guys have road bikes, are you allowed to?
Dean Thomas: Basically no. It’s too easy to get rucked up with a car and your careers suddenly put on hold and years of work are destroyed. I got a wildcard ride this year in World Supersports at Philip Island because Stephan Chambon broke a leg on his motorcross bike.
Andrew: So you just get a call, pack your bags and get to Australia?
Dean Thomas: Basically yes!
Andrew: From our side of the fence it looks like a very glamorous job, has it lived up to your expectations from when you were a lad?
Dean Thomas: To be honest it quickly becomes run-of-the-mill, but it is a good lifestyle. It’s not just riding motorcycles, there’s a lot of promotion work and other stuff that always needs doing, but what people don’t realise is that it’s like having to get a new job every year. You get to the end of the year (season) and don’t know if you’ll have a job next year. You may have a good job this year but if you are the wrong nationality or the funding doesn’t work out or…
Andrew: the sponsors don’t like you or your face doesn’t fit?
Dean Thomas: Yeah so you don’t really know what’s going to happen a the end of the year.
Andrew: And you guys have to sort all this out during the season, you’ve got to go barrelling into high speed chicanes with all that bubbling around in your head?
Dean Thomas: Aha... Yeah it’s good until mid-year when it all gets a bit hectic.
Andrew: So do you know what you’re doing then?
Dean Thomas: Too early yet - have to wait and see.
Andrew: Do you have a favourite bike - I mean would you ride for a team because of the bike ? Thinking as a road rider choosing a new bike.
Dean Thomas: There’s not one bike that stands out particularly, but ask any rider which one they’d like to be on and it’s the one that is winning! Here it’s the Ducati, in another series it may be the Honda and the Ducati ….
Andrew: They need to get some grab handles on the back of Lavilla’s bike for you all to hang on to!
Dean Thomas: I ran a Ducati in 2004 and it took a long time to adjust.
Andrew: It must be hard, is it like the difference between the road bikes taken to the greatest degree?
Dean Thomas: Yeah, it is but now I’m getting quicker on this one and that’s cool.
Andrew: Would you say that the rider is still the most important part of the package?
Dean Thomas: Well it’s a team thing. You can have the fastest bike in the world but if you ride slow, you go slow. So it’s the best package that counts.
Andrew: Ok great, so what do you do now? Chill out?
Dean Thomas: Yeah, get changed, get organised for tomorrow then TV, a big fruit drink and early to bed.
Andrew: Well enjoy, thanks very much Dean and good luck for tomorrow.
Peter Hickman was interviewed after Dean and after the 125s had finished. Peter was fresh from telling off from the marshals, for riding straight back to the pits, rather than leaving it for scrutineering. Naughty!!!
Andrew: How are you finding the new chicane Peter?
Peter Hickman: Quite difficult actually. It’s very tight, more of any acute angle so you come in from a high speed, you’re leant over and have to turn and brake at the same time so it’s quite difficult not to tuck the front end. It’s more dangerous than it was before for definite, what they needed to do was change Edwina rather than put another chicane in. Now the circuit it all made up of chicanes apart from the entry in to Gerrards and the Elbow.
Andrew: Mind the pond’s nice!
Peter Hickman: Yeah I’ve been fishing a bit.
Andrew: Does the new chicane mean that you need to make any specific alterations to the bike?
Peter Hickman: I’m getting a lot of pumping on the rear shock which if we dial that out means I lose grip, so it’s got to be a real compromise. We’re gonna try one thing in tomorrow’s warm up session, if it works we’ll stick with it, we have no worries with tyre life which is good tho. It’s all down to grip at the minute, just not got as much as I’d like.
I’m quite enjoying it though. If it rains as promised tomorrow it’ll be even better for me. Mondello was great, I was 12th and on average times I’d have been 6th overall. There is definitely a trick to it - if you watch all the crashes there is a pattern amongst the non Michelin boys. We looked at, changed the thing and went well in Mondello.
Andrew: So a rain dance is in order then?
Peter Hickman: Ahaha... the only problem is that we’re 22nd on the grid and there’s that chicane, we’re going to be right in the middle of it.
Andrew: But doesn’t the front of the pack get the worst of it?
Peter Hickman: Mid pack tends to get the worst of it. Problem is, that because it is so slow, if a bike goes down it isn’t going to slide off the track, it’ll be left in the middle of it.
Andrew: What are your tactics for the chicane?
Peter Hickman: I tend to be pretty quick off the start and then good on the brakes so I expect to be right in the thick of it!
Andrew: It’s a lottery really. Being first or last is best but otherwise ……
Brief intermission while the mechanics make tea and chat about the TT performance of the Hawk bike.Andrew: Do you fancy the IOM Pete?
Peter Hickman: No.
Andrew: How on earth does McGuiness ride here then go over there and do well in a short period of days? Aren’t they different disciplines altogether?
Peter Hickman: Absolutely, but then again they (the road circuits) are getting more like this every year, it’s getting too much really, the bikes are too fast now.
That concludes Andrews interview. Londonbikers would like to thank Dean Thomas and Peter Hickman for taking out the time for this interview. We would also like to thank Carly Rathmall for making this possible. Cheers Gal!
Related Linkswww.hawkkawasaki.co.uk Related Galleries BSB: '06 R6 Mallory Park Qualifying BSB: '06 R6, Mallory Park Racing
