You guys have had a few years of solid results, but what’s changed to make you so competitive this year?
It’s hard to put my finger on it exactly. In the last few years it’s taken a while for Daniel to really adjust to the YZF-R1, and mentally he has grown and matured. He understands you don’t get race pace straight away – it’s about staying upright.
I think the whole team has grown together. We’ve been together for a long time, that’s Jon, Liam, Kylie, Daniel and myself. Jon and Liam have grown to understand the bike a lot better and they’ve learnt how to now take the feedback from Daniel and make changes on the bike that really make a difference.
Before we used to guess a bit, now we know which way to go with the suspension, we know what Daniel’s asking for, we know how he likes to ride a motorcycle.
To the outsider, the team comes across as very professional. Is it a true privateer outfit?
We do everything ourselves. When Daniel’s not at university I’ve got him running around picking up parts or doing something to the bike. Yamaha do help us out, but we are a totally privateer team. We pay for our motorcycles, we never get anything given to us. Technically, we have to work out everything ourselves.
Jon is a degree-qualified mechanical engineer. He does that with heavy machinery in the gas industry. All engines these days run in a similar way, so he is able to apply the concepts from his day job to racing motorcycles. He puts the maps in the R1 and gets it tuned so they are going to run as well as they can at any particular track.
Liam Wilkinson, he’s been Daniel’s friend for years and he has raced since he was 14, so he understands the whole racing fraternity. He has a knack for solving problems and he’s taught himself a lot in the suspension area, as well as tyre choices, etc. It’s at a point now where he takes charge of race management as a whole.
My background is in natural gas, but I’ve always ridden motorcycles. I used to take the kids to school on a motorcycle.
They would have been the coolest kids in school?!
Yeah, I used to go and do massive burnouts for them and everything. The problem is, I created a monster! I can’t get them out of it – they love it.
I think that’s the main thing, they really enjoy going racing. I always said to them, if we don’t have a great time doing this, I don’t want to do it, because it’s taken up our lives. It’s all we do. We live and breathe it.
What advice would you give to teams or riders who are considering going down the privateer path?
I believe racing is all about the team. The attitude of everyone in the team is one of the biggest factors. To be at the top of this game you obviously also need money behind you, and you definitely need two motorcycles. If you don’t have two bikes, it’ll bite you soon enough. These bikes, they crash like pianos. We’ve destroyed bikes completely. It happens to the best.
What are some of the pros and cons of being a private team?
I think there is a benefit in being a private team. I was talking to Robbie Phillis and he thought we had a great situation – being at the pointy end and making our own decisions. We have sponsors we need to keep happy, but our decisions are our own and it
does take some pressure off. We can choose our own suppliers, for example.
I think the cons … well, we’ve been doing this for 10 years and we’ve never missed a race. In all that time there hasn’t been a home round for us in South Australia. So the travelling, the driving, juggling time commitments, it’s tough.
If Daniel was in a factory team where it was possible to fly to the round and meet the team there, that would be perfect. The stress of travel is the biggest downside for us.
I really love how far the ASBK series has come. I think it is one of the best series worldwide.
We’ve been offered rides overseas – in Germany, Italy, Sweden – but they always require you to put up money. Now, even though we know it’s a good deal, it’s money we don’t have.
We don’t see the point in travelling overseas unless the contract is right, because we have great racing here in Australia. But if the right offer comes along, who knows!
Interview Matt O’Connell
