By There’s a normality, a realness, down to earth nature attached to all pure road racers.
Never Be Clever Racing’s Rhys Hardisty, epitomises this sentiment.
During the rotten weather induced 2024 Manx Grand Prix, Road Racing News enjoyed a candid, insightful chat about a scutch of real roads related subjects.
You’d have been hard pressed to find a more distinctive colour scheme at this year’s MGP, than the one ablaze his two-stroke TZ 250 Yamaha mount.
Discussing the reasons for the pink, yellow, blue livery plus the smiling emoji, Hardisty fourth in the one-lap PE Lightweight race, stated:
“The whole idea behind the helmet in the first place, was to represent the idiot inside us I suppose! But the colour scheme on the bike, my friend is a mural painter, a good artist at home and I asked her would she paint the helmet for me this year and she said yeah ok, we will have a go at-it and she did a cracking job at that.
So, I then said I’ve got an idea, I need the bike painting, do you fancy a go at that, and she was like oh yeah great. She painted the bike, and it was what sort of thing do you want on the bike, I said basically loosely around my helmet, I don’t care what you it’s a blank canvass, but I just want the acid face or the smiley face on it, it’s got to be on it.
She said, ok, how loud do you want it, I said you’ve got free rein and fair do’s she’s done a cracking job the only problem is when I was sort of pulling the bike apart in the awning and started fixing it.
It was cool when I was in their morning, then the tank started venting and it’s taken some of the paint off the tank, it’s probably, the bike will be alright now because it’s a bit ropey around the edges like me now, so probably be ace!”
Presently eleventh, tenth respectively in the 2024 IRRC Superbike, Supersport Championship standings, Hardisty stated the following about his second season in Europe’s leading real road racing series.
“It’s starting to get there, and we’ve made a few changes and the changes we’ve been making are starting to pay off.
I just went a little bit the wrong way with set-up at Horice on the big bike, we had a mechanical in the second 600 race, the throttle stopped working, with it been fly by wire so that put us out of race two, which was a shame because we got a good start, got tucked in behind ‘Indi’ (Michal Dokoupil) so I knew I could go with ‘Indi’ and obviously he placed, finished really well in that race.
It’s been a good experience, the boys we’ve going with and Adam’s (McLean) over there now as well so it’s a good bunch of us over there and Gary, Gary Johnson.
Everyone works together, Jamie’s (Williams) been out there, obviously he’s been first off in the first session (Manx GP qualifying one – 18th August) but he’s been great, were all together.”
“But went a little bit the wrong way in the last big bike race (at Horice), I could feel it wasn’t right and I had a couple of moments right where you don’t want to be off it.
I just thought well should I ride around and go for a finish and I thought well it’s just as dangerous riding around not at pace, just pull it in, I had to use my head a bit and pull in, which I hate doing because it’s the last race of the weekend, because it carries with you a little bit to the next meeting.
I hate having to pull in but in hindsight was probably the right decision, move onto the next one.”
Hardisty’s IRRC exploration has enabled participation at many of Europe’s most complex, challenging roads circuits including Circuit De Chimay, Horice but it’s the Nordic nations top road race, Imatranajo that he counts as the hardest to adapt to.
“For me probably the hardest one is Imatra. Great circuit, again the hospitality, the people who run the event is fantastic, everybody in the paddock is brilliant, all the riders from all the different countries.
But it’s a bit like a mini-Northwest 200, I haven’t been back to the Northwest, went there once didn’t have a good run with bike problems and so on, we didn’t get a lot of track time and maybe it’s something that if I’d done a bit more of that I’d be better at.
Horice is very demanding but overall, it’s more like a road race, for me Imatra is the hardest one to adapt to.
Like I say brilliant circuit, enjoy riding it but it’s just I prefer to get a rhythm and a flair going and that comes from the smaller bikes and when I get a rhythm going that’s when I’m at my best, when I feel I’m at my best and Imatra’s a lot more sort of stop start, that’s probably the most difficult one.”
Photo credit: Nick Wheeler
Words by Stevie Rial #dontletfearcontrolyou
