Valentine’s BSB future

In this week’s MCN (Feb 18) we reveal the full story behind Crescent Suzuki’s one-man British Superbike team with Sylvain Guintoli and talk to team manager Jack Valentine about the new Suzuki GSX-R1000 K9 race bike.

We also asked Valentine for his views on the state of BSB – and comment on some of the cost cutting ideas that have been mentioned as a means to ensure the future well-being of the series, should the recession continue to deepen.

One bike per rider
I can’t see the saving in this at all. Whatever happens you have to carry enough parts to build a second bike in the event of a big crash. We’ve just built those spares into a second bike. They have to be identical otherwise there’s no point. What tends to happen is that a rider will tend to have a favourite and stick with it. Then you have to ensure you constantly update the spare in case he does need to use it.

Superstock engines
Hmm, it’s a difficult one. I’ve no real objections so long as they can the superstock race class. There are two problems I see: the first is you’re lowering the standard of what is meant to be the premier class.  Secondly, if you run completely stock engines, what tends to happen is that every year one bike stands out as the best to have. We ran a Yamaha superstock for David Jefferies one year, when the GSX-R1000s were clearly the best bike to have. That’s why allowing tuning to level things out is good for superbike racing.  Personally I’ve never been in favour of pure production racing. Who has the best bike will always win.

Two-day meetings
They would work but what would you save? Two practice sessions. And the teams would just go testing instead. Then you would need a testing ban. There’s an argument you would save on hotels but really, that’s small fry in the bigger picture. Ask yourself why do top BSB teams go to the expense of testing in Spain? It’s to get the bikes set-up properly to do the best job possible. It’s professional racing.

Other ideas
Without going silly, it’s hard to trim the costs any more. We could cut tyre allocations maybe. But it would be like going back in time. We could go to control ECUs. But then you would have one manufacturer supplying all the ECUs and that just won’t work.  I think we’ve got to remember that BSB is second only to WSB. If we mess with it too much we’ll lose that profile. WSB is thriving. They must be doing something right.  The way our rules are now there’s no cheating either. Try to tighten the rules and you’ll open them to cheating.