Roads: Tuxworth back at Honda for road racing season

Neil Tuxworth will continue working with Honda Racing’s roads effort this year despite officially retiring from his role at the helm of Honda’s racing activities last year.

The long-serving team boss retired at the end of August last year but with two of the biggest road races of the year clashing with rounds of the Endurance World Championship, he’s been drafted in to support Jonny Twelvetrees who heads up both the roads and endurance operations.

Tuxworth’s first gig back with the team was this week’s Castle Combe test and he’ll be present at the remainder of the team’s testing activities moving forwards as well as the North West 200, Isle of Man TT and Ulster Grand Prix.

“We knew last year that there were going to be some clashes between the World Endurance Championship and the road racing and I can’t be in two places at once,” Twelvetrees told MCN.

“You can’t take on the task of trying to win a world endurance championship and trying to win a TT while not being at either full time. We needed someone there to stand in and with all of his years’ experience in road racing it was a bit of a no brainer…”

“Neil will be deputy team manager this year and will be running things when I’m not around. The clashes are at the start of the North West, when we are just getting back from the Slovakia 8hr and then race week at the TT where we’re at Oschersleben with World Endurance. He’ll be there at every road race event, sharing his knowledge and expertise and working with Julian [former McGuinness crew chief] who knows everything anyway. Besides, I’m not sure Neil ever wanted to retire!”

At this moment in time it is unknown exactly how the Honda team will look for this year’s international road races as new signing Ian Hutchinson continues to recover from his broken leg. A decision on whether Hutchinson will race alongside Ulsterman Lee Johnston is expected to be taken in the next few weeks with Steve Mercer waiting in the wings as reserve rider should the Bingley Bullet not ride.