Interview by Mark & Dave Neal
James Hillier is a busy man, and if he’s not now he certainly will be when the season starts.
Hillier will be racing in the North West 200, Isle of Man TT as well as the British Superbike Championship plus anything else you care to throw at him.
But the laid back youngster seems to be taking it all in his stride as we sit down with him at the Pr1mo Bournemouth Kawasaki launch.
So we were just chatting to you ‘boss’.
“Hopefully he was saying good things?”
Well he was basically saying that where he is now is down to you basically, from your dad walking into his dealership saying sponsor my kid.
“A few years ago yeah, we do go quite far back when you factor that in. Initially Pete had very little interest in road racing but it’s kind of got hold of him now and he’s in the deep end and hooked. It’s a good thing, not sure if his wife would agree [laughs] no she enjoys it but, he’s in the thick of it now but he enjoys it and it does benefit his shop massively I think and gives him a new business adventure. It’s good for everyone really, it is an expensive, tough thing to run and fair play to him he’s doing a good job and I’ll help him as much as I can to do it.
“That’s the way it works, I help out when I can, he’s obviously the main guy but I’ve been in the paddock a fair bit longer than him so initially I knew a few more people perhaps. But he’s very good at networking and he’s a clever guy, I’ve got a lot of respect for him.”
So you started off in the R6 cup?
“Yes, that’s right that was my first year in the paddock in ’03. I did that for two years and then I moved to Gearlink Kawasaki and I’ve been green ever since.”
It would be good to get another one make series in, one of the good things Rob Mac did come up with.
“Yeah definitely, but then he started getting greedy and ripping everyone off so they stopped doing it, but that was amazing, the first two or three years of that series were good and the racing was strong and it produced Tommy Hill and Cal Crutchlow and look where they are.”
Some characters that the series produced.
“Yeah, looking at characters in the paddock as well, people like Guy Martin for example, they’re worth a fortune to sponsors, they want people like that, they’ll perhaps sacrifice a bit of performance for a character that people want to be associated with.”
We need characters in the paddock
“Definitely, definitely.”
So for this year you’ve got the TT and you’ve got the Championship, what’s your focus?
“Round-by-round really, my main focus at the moment is Superbikes then I’ll switch to North West, it’s going to be hard jumping backwards and forwards but you know, people say you can never crack both types of races.”
Steve Plater would disagree
“He would yeah, he’s strong in both, if you can ride a motorbike you can ride a motorbike it just depends on quite how you approach everything you know?
“That’s my ambition is to ride fast in whatever I do and be at the front, it’s going to be hard this year, very hard.”
From starting on the R6 cup, how did the switch to the roads come about?
“I went with my dad (to the TT) in ’97 when I was a boy and it scared the shit out of me [laughs], it completely scared me and I thought it was crazy, the way my dad spoke about it it was just for another pedigree type of rider, it was another ‘thing’ compared to the short circuit stuff we’d watch.
“I always had an interest in it, always, and wanted to one-day do it but focused obviously on the short circuits and a few people I spoke to about the Isle of Man said to hold out and learn to ride the bikes properly first on the short circuits and then go to the Isle of Man, which is a good valid point. There are young kids going to the roads now and I do think they’re a tiny bit too young.”
That’s a good point, it tends to be the more mature riders that do very well on the roads.
“Yeah exactly, take Ian Hutchinson, he’s got a few years on me and so has Guy Martin so I’d like to think I’ve a few more years in my bag yet.
“I enjoy road racing I do it for the buzz, in the current climate and the way idiots in offices take health and safety, it’s unbelievable that the Isle of Man is still allowed to happen and I want to make the most of that and enjoy it while something like that is legal, you can’t get much closer to the edge than that it’s a special place.”
How do you think you’ve performed at the TT so far?
“I think I’ve been fast but not where I want to be. I want to get more up there. I’ve got it in there to put a good lap in, I’ve just got to string it together.
“This year I want to break 1.30, I’m not going to go crazy for it but I think if I can ride as well as I know I can and put it together than I totally believe I can do a 1.30. the guys up there doing it I know I can ride as well as them.”
Is it difficult not to override to get the faster lap?
“It tends to come when you’re more relaxed, once you start trying to brake hard and rushing then you go backwards.
“You’ve just got to let it come together, you watch McGuinness through there he just cruises and he’s fast. He doesn’t necessarily look it but he is and then you can ride round there feeling fast and you’re slow, and again I think that’s an age thing, for example if you watch Michael Dunlop, he’s pretty loose where in ten years time he’ll probably be pretty smooth I reckon, you can’t ride like that forever.
“To be there consistently and successfully you’ve got to be smooth and know it well.”
When you see things like TT3D and in particular the Connor Cummins crash, what do you think when you see things like that? Do you try not to?
“I don’t mind I’ll watch it all day long, it just makes you realise really, you think well if I crash there I can just bounce of here and end up down here and I’ll be alright [laughs] but when you see them happen and the pictures of the aftermath you think well it probably wouldn’t go that well [laughs].
“But crashes can happen without it being your mistake, but I just do my thing and ride to what I think is my limit, if something happens it’s going to happen, I’ll worry about it then.”
Does it affect you though, maybe more round the circuits, but if you’ve gone round in practice and come off at a certain corner, does that then play on your mind the next time you come to that corner?
“If you crash and you don’t quite know why or what you did wrong then yeah, but if you went down a gear too much or just being greedy and too much gas or being stupid then you can alter your style for the next time you go round”
