Wayne Maxwell to defend Australian Superbike Championship crown in 2022
Trev – So Wayne, that was a pretty short retirement….
Wayne Maxwell – “(Laughs) Yes that’s right, a little lesson not to speak before you were 100 per cent sure I guess…
“2021 didn’t really work out how we thought it was going to work out. We thought the contact tracing and Covid was getting under control, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“Anyhow, it was a successful year for us, and hopefully a good platform towards us having a good season in 2022.”
Trev – You do have a lot going on in 2022, along with the normal husband and dad duties, you are continuing to expand your Ohvale program, and have also stepped up to run the inaugural FIM MiniGP Australia Series, a Road to MotoGP initiative between Dorna, FIM and Ohvale Europe which made its debut in 2021, and starts in Australia this year. You’ve been instrumental in getting the Ohvale days going in Australia, predominantly on small kart tracks, and have expanded to new tracks this year. I believe the pressures of running the series and promoting that business was part of the reasoning behind you initially choosing to pull the pin on your racing career. What changes are you making to ensure you can stay on top of all these commitments in 2022?
WM – “Obviously it’s a massive challenge, I have gone all-in with focus. I’ve got two fantastic partners with Nick and Dim in Ohvale. We are also surrounded by a great bunch of people around us and with the support of Motorcycling Australia it is going to be something great for us to help change things, to hopefully make going racing easier and help with the future of the young kids coming through and to have this great platform for a road to MotoGP.
“To ensure all that doesn’t go wrong, I have finished up my day job to fully focus on Ohvale now, so I don’t have be out on building sites on the tools like I have for the last five years or so, which will give me a lot more flexibility and time to train, and then work a bit later at night once the kids go to bed.”
Trev – Just glancing back to 2021 again, from the outside looking in, you looked to be doing it relatively easy at The Bend. I know looks can be deceptive, but the team must have given you a bike that was pretty much spot-on that weekend.
WM – “Life, and especially racing, is so much about being in the right place at the right time, for me to be in that team, with Craig as the leader, Adrian’s commitment, along with everyone else, the main key people obviously, Greg and Julie from Racer’s Edge, and Dale, all of our supporters, Barry and Ken Horner have got a wealth of knowledge and are obviously second to none when it comes to engineering. Without the support of all those things needed to go racing, without the support of all those it doesn’t happen. Everyone actually enjoys being there. No one is grumpy, it is a fantastic environment, I guess that is what produces the results on track.”
Trev – How much time do you spend with Adrian going over the data, and providing feedback for him to fine tune the bike over the course of a race weekend? I presume you have a great baseline to work from now, then it is just a matter of fine tuning the package to the conditions over each day of the race weekend.
WM – “We spend a little bit of time, I don’t spend too much time as I try to stay in my lane, I am the rider, everyone plays their role, everyone is equally important from the rider, to whoever makes the lunches, it doesn’t happen without everyone.
“With Adrian I spend a little bit of time, probably mostly at night, we never really go out for dinner, we just stay together at our accommodation and eat there, as we all enjoy each other’s company. Once dinner finishes up, we have an ice-cream, then we pull the laptop out and have a look at some of the data for half an hour or so. Then the next morning Adrian will come back to me with some stuff, and we roll on from there.”
Trev – The systems now are so sophisticated that I imagine unless the bike gets really out of shape, you hardly even feel the traction control system working, is that right.
WM – “Yeah. Honestly it is a very complex the way it is done. Every brand has a different strategy in the way they do it, from dropping cylinders, retarding ignition, or pulling the throttle back, or even a combination of all of the above. Unlike the MoTeC system that some teams are moving to this year, we can’t change the way all that works. We actually don’t have a lot of adjustment when it comes to that with the Marelli system, it is all set in the background pretty much like any other kit ECU, be that a Yamaha or a Honda or whatever, you can’t really change the background behind the way it works, you can only really change the numbers that they allow you to change. It’s not perfect, but we have a very good system and can work around it.”
Trev – Engine brake control was something you were struggling early on with in regards to the standard ECU, which is the reason why you wanted to go MoTeC in the first place, yet you still did win races with the stock electronics, how much work is still spent on refining engine brake control with your current Magneti Marelli electronics?
WM – “It’s more than just you say the current engine brake control, yes we spend a little bit of time with the engine brake control, refining that, but it’s more the data to work out exactly what’s needed. Look at Toprak, doesn’t matter what you do with engine brake control if he has the back wheel in the air half the time. And we can’t adjust the chassis, to say kick the front out so we still have good feel when the wheel comes off the ground, we run standard steering head angle and triple clamps, it is probably a bit more important for us than in some series where they can adjust the geometry more.”
Trev – As early advocates for MoTeC, would you and your team likely support a move to a control MoTeC ECU across the board? I know the Ducati and Honda team have made some big investments in the homologated kit now, but with Motorcycling Australia not having the resources and tools to plug into those systems, and thus ensure people are not accessing functionality that they shouldn’t be using, it does seem very open to potential abuse…?
WM – “It does. And just say you have got a Yamaha, and you are a customer with a kit ECU, what’s to say that the Factory Yamaha Racing Team are not using a different program, that you can’t even get.. In our circumstances with Marelli, everyone on a Ducati can get exactly what we have.
“Or if we went to a MoTeC control ECU, which we would be 100 per cent supportive of, and having the same as everyone else, I feel that way everyone has the same and there are no excuses.
“To my mind, racing has never been easier, at the moment, than it ever has. Everyone has access to the same tyres, no special tyres for special riders/teams, there is nothing like that, everything is accessible.
“Back when I first started every manufacturer had two factory bikes, they had special tyres… Back then I think as a kid I was just naive to all that, I just thought well he is on the same bike and I am going to beat him, on the same bike…
“But right now I think the access is pretty equal. For people’s peace of mind, the control ECU is good in some respects. But of course you still have to drive it, you still have to be able to analyse the data, you’ve still got to be able to give good feedback.. And I still don’t think it is going to change the results.”
Trev – Nor do I think to a degree, not to any huge margin. But in some ways racers have to be protected from themselves, and looking for things to blame other than themselves. So it would take that little metric out of the blame equation.
Wayne – “Definitely.”
Trev – Do you think there is enough technical oversight in ASBK? Supersport 300 is starting to be called Superbike 300 around the pits, due to the amount of alleged cheating going on there. Of course we do have to allow Motorcycling Australia some leeway over the past couple of years of the pandemic, in regards to staffing and logistics issues, but do you think 2022 should be the time they started getting serious in this area? I have raised this with Motorcycling Australia via Peter Doyle, and while he said more oversight would be a great thing, he immediately pointed out the economic impact that these extra human resources would cost, and asked, would competitors swallow paying larger entry fees to help fund such policing of the rules? What’s your take on the situation?
WM – “You are damned if you do, and you damned if you don’t if you are Motorcycling Australia. You pull someone’s bike down only to find they are not cheating and they are going to be ropeable. Thus they are stuck between a rock and a hard place, they are working towards trying to find a happy medium of a system to put in place. But let’s be honest, if you are winning in Supersport 300 there is not a Superbike team kicking in the door to sign you up, it doesn’t really matter… It’s just a class for learning the ropes….
“I never won anything, because I was too big, in the smaller categories, not until we got to the big bikes, and got the experience and got better. I can guarantee you now that there are guys finishing fifth and sixth in those classes now, that will probably out-do the guys that have been winning in the years to come.”
Trev – That’s an interesting way of looking at it…. Thanks for the chat Wayne, see you at Phillip Island in a few days time.
Wayne – “See you then Trev.”
