by Mark & Dave Neal
Chris Walker, the legend, the veteran, the Stalker. He’s clearly a man who loves his motorbikes, whilst being interviewed he reaches over, unconsciously you suspect, to start squeezing the levers on the handlebars of James Hillier’s bike.
His hands are hardened, finger nails black from dirt and other oil and he tells us he’s just come from his own motocross school this morning.
Back again on Kawasaki for 2012, looking forward to it?
“Yes its exciting times really. I mean it’s been a while since I had the luxury of riding the same bike for a second season, it always make the job a little easier at the start of the season when you’re familiar with what you’re sat on.
“Also the team around, although there’s been changes behind the scenes, ultimately the guys I’m working with, Ray the technical guy on the bike and the two lads actually spannering, are the same guys I worked with last year so as a team, that bit of it is the same. So it’s brilliant to be in that position where it is actually a proper second year.
“The machinery is a different one to last year but it’s the same bike ultimately in that it’s a Kawasaki 10R without it physically being the same frame and engine, but no, really, really exciting. I think the new rules are good for the Kawasaki.”
Good for you?
“Yeah, yeah they should be I mean at the end of the day I don’t think it’s so much about the older riders, it’s down to your background really. The guys that have had off-road skills and off-road experience and bits-and-bobs, like Gowland for example, they didn’t have any of the niceties last year but he could still cut it right at the front on a lesser bike. And it’s because he was under 21 British motocross champion, you know, it counts for a lot and although it’s a long while since I raced motocross that’s my roots and so I’ve always ridden a bike that slides and moves and things without too much trouble so yeah it’s exciting times I think.
“The new rules will be good, I don’t think it will change the winners and the best teams will still be the similar ones to what they were [last year] but I think the gaps will close. People were finishing in the top ten but 10 and 20 seconds behind the leaders last year and it shouldn’t be that way.
“We’ve got Swan Yamaha’s there that are worth the best part of 250,000 Euros and there are other guys in the top ten that are on bikes that are worth 50,000 Euros whereas this year the Swan Yamaha’s have come back to the paddock a little bit, as have other bikes, and then bikes like ours, although they’ve restricted certain bits, we’re going to be sat on a better bike than we were last year, just minus traction control, so I think it will close the gap over race distance.
“I think ultimately you’ll still get Tommy Hill getting pole positions and young Laverty and stuff like that but they shouldn’t, shouldn’t be 20 seconds in front at the flag which I think will make the racing better for everybody: the spectators and also for the riders.
“When you’re sat on the line knowing you’ve got half a chance of finishing within ten seconds of the fastest guy out there, then if somebody makes a mistake or whatever, you can then get top five and podiums as a privateer. That’s when it’s like how it used to be and when it’s exciting for all.”
Does it help having Ray Stringer in the background who is used to working on the bike and the looser bikes giving you the ideas and helping you out, more than the ECU and the laptop etc?
“There’ll still be an element of the teams with the biggest funding and the best ‘knowledge’, for arguments sake, the best technical behind the scenes, they will still have a bit of an advantage because there’s still things you can do even without traction control within the rules to make the bike easier to get on the gas and that’s where someone as technical as Ray really comes into their own.
“Ray’s worked on bikes before traction control came along and tried to make them more user friendly, they were 20 bhp less than what we’ve got now as it was a few years ago [laughs] but it’s the same principle. And so for me, the team wouldn’t be the team without Ray Stringer in the background. It’s a great team and it looks brilliant but you need some technical expertise and that is Ray Stringer.
“We were very fortunate as a team to have Ray on board last year and he’ll be doubly important this year so for me it’s a big thing that Ray’s here. And the two lads that spannered on my bike: Chunty and Adam, they’re brilliant; they were just impeccable last year. We had a couple of DNF’s mainly down to failures in the internals of the engine but in actual fact as a team they only really made one mistake which cost us a finish, that was it so you can’t knock that really can you?”
Over 26 races that’s not a bad return?
“No exactly and the ones we didn’t finish were down to gremlins from within which you can’t really do anything about so it’s going to be mega. I jelled with the bike straight away last year, we didn’t hit the bike at track one with the best bike out there, but we just chipped away all season spending money in the right areas on the bike and ended up with a base setting in the last couple of rounds that worked for me and that’s obviously were we’ll start with testing next week when we have our first ride out, we’ll start as we finished the last race.
“That’s part of the luxury of riding the same bike, that’s not something I’ve had in the last couple of years, you go to the first test and it’s moving handlebars etc., well they’re still in the same place as last year, you’ve got a lot of things that you don’t have to worry about and you can just concentrate on riding and getting yourself dialled in.
“In an ideal world it would have been nice to get sorted a bit earlier and get out to Spain, you read on the internet now everyone’s out there doing laps and laps and there’s no substitute for a bit of bike time really, but we’re out next week a quick shakedown and then we’re going to go to the Brands and Snetterton tests and then before you know it it’s round one. So you know, it’s been that lull, it doesn’t get exciting until now really, you get all signed up and then there’s such a long time over the winter.”
And it was a difficult winter for you anyway wasn’t it?
“I was on and then I was off and then I was on and then I was off. It was like when you’re first trying to get your leg over as a 15 year old [laughs], just when you think you’re going to get it your mum comes home! [laughs]
“But it was hard work at times but my motivation level never went away to race for this year, I desperately wanted to race this year, I think the new rules will be great for the paddock, for the championship, they’ll close the gap so riders like myself that have been round a while should get a bit closer to the front. And the bike that we’re on, the Kawasaki, does lend itself to the new rules very well.
“If you were looking for a negative it would just be the fact that, in the new rules they’ve left a bit of a loophole for bikes with fly-by-wire throttles and there’s only the Yamaha and the Aprilia that have got it but you can do so much with fly-by-wire throttles it’s almost more important than traction control on those bikes and that’s a bit of a loophole because the Kawasaki doesn’t have that. But neither does the Honda, neither does the Suzuki and a couple of other bikes, so it’s not like we’re the only ones out there but it’s probably a rule that they’ll look at and tweak over the season because originally when it was announced fly-by-wire throttles were one-to-one just like mechanical ones but then they’ve changed it for whatever reason which is a bit of a shame.
“But no it’s going to be good. I think Pete’s (team owner) done a brilliant job holding it all together, rallying round with the departure of Dan Cheevers and his budget at the end of the day was the big thing and for me to still be here and for him to still have a team with what’s gone on in the winter is, it’s just massive respect really.
“Everything looks right, it feels right, it’s exciting to have some younger riders to work with. I haven’t got a teenage son coming through the ranks I’ve got a two-year old little girl and although I want her to ride a motorbike it will be a while before she’s on a ZX10 [laughs].
“So for me to be in a position where I was once the other lads, you know it was ’96 and ’97, way-way back I was Mackenzie’s team mate as a young upstart that used to crash more than I finished but I was brave and daft and I used to get a result now-and-then when I stayed on it. But I learnt so much from those guys, you listen, and some of it you use and some of it you don’t, some of it you give a go, some works for you some doesn’t but at the end of the day it’s so nice to have that and for me to be at a period in my career where I’m not trying to prove myself.
“If I give James [Hillier] everything I’ve got, settings wise and this-that and the other and he ends up faster than me, well he deserves to be, it’s not an issue for me but throughout your career it’s not always like that. You’re always pushing to try and do the best and things and just sometimes someone’s better than you on the day. And I actually think, although he’s not as much of a challenger on the short circuits as he is on the roads, I think just the level of machinery he’s sat on for 2012 compared to what he’s ever ridden before will make a massive step. He can do it, I’ve followed him round to be honest, early on last year when we were still playing with the Kawasaki and still trying to get a feel for it, I got a tow off him at Oulton Park just like I would if he was Tommy Hill, I saw him and I tucked in behind him, he can ride a bike but he’s never ridden anything quite as special as what he’s going to have this year.
“I think, with having a team that believes in him, they’ve pushed all the way to give him this ride so they’ve obviously got a lot of faith in him and if he can just get on this bike and make the most of it I think he’ll be a top-ten runner and that’ll be phenomenal if he can do that.”
What do you think of the Assen round coming in this year?
“Yeah it’s great, I mean, it’s obvious that Tom is trying to take over the world [laughs] in the way that he does, but why not? I don’t think there’s anyone better than MSVR and Palmer and Stuart Higgs especially to make our series what it is they’ve done an amazing job and to take it overseas I think it’s the first step in making it a mini European championship and whether we ever really need a World Superbikes as well as a MotoGP when they’re all four-cylinder thousands…you just look at it and think well actually it’s the right thing to do.
“The riders we’ve got in there when you’ve got the likes of Josh Brookes, we’ve had Kiyo, now we’ve got Haga, the list goes on and on, we’ve had an international championship anyway, it’s just actually been based on the British Isles. So to have a race or two overseas I think its mega. And Assen for the first one, it’s always been like the third British round anyway of World Superbikes, it’s the Mecca where everyone sets off to.
“I’ve been and watched there as a punter, I’ve been and raced there as a Superbike rider and I’ve had my one and only win there so I love the place [laughs]. I’ve also had a speeding fine in my motorhome there and I’ve spent the night in jail! [laughs] Mistaken identity I’ll have you know [laughs], I got away at the identity parade. But I think it’s great and I think it’ll be a lot of fun that round, they’re organising a boat that the majority of the teams will go across on and also the punters can pay to be on the same boat to travel across with the guys, they’ve got lots and lots of ideas to make it special so it’ll be a round to look forward to. And of course if you are one of the lucky ones in the shootout, the top six, then that’s the first round of it, so that’s pretty awesome as well. To make that the first round of the shootout is brilliant, they don’t miss a trick do they old Palmer and Higgsy [laughs].”
Is that your ambition for the season then to be in the shootout at the end?
“Yes, I mean you never know till round one or two whether that’s unrealistic or not but with the results we could achieve last year, if we’d had a bit more consistency and we didn’t have those DNF’s we would have been knocking on the door of it last year.”
You were regularly qualifying in the top ten last season.
“Well, I always struggled to get into Q3, no-problems with 1 and 2 but just scraped in occasionally to three. I think that’s one area where I need to improve is on the qualifying side of it. The bikes are capable of a lot more on new tyres and last year we probably didn’t always go about it right, me mentally and the team.
“You need the minimum amount of fuel in, you need the right front tyre in to suit the back tyre you’ve got in. With a one-man privateer team, even with the sponsors we had last season, we had limited amount of wheels and stuff and you can’t always necessarily have the right front tyre to go with the new rear you’re putting in for qualifying.
“Some of the teams attack that qualifying, it’s so important. Everyone’s lap times, despite being 15 and 20 seconds behind at the flag some people, qualifying is so close.
“Just having the right amount of fuel in your bike, having the right tyres on, being out on track at the right time, getting a bit of a tow if you need it and that’s what we need to improve on for this year. I’ve never struggled to get a start in a race but if you get a good start from row three or four, it’s nowhere near as getting a good start from row two and that, from my side, is where we need to push on and improve and then we can get the bike and the team where it deserves to be.”
We wish Chris and the whole Pr1mo Kawasaki Bournemouth team all the best for the 2012 season.
