By A-few minutes after lifting the winner’s trophy for a second time at the Macau Motorcycle Grand Prix, 8TEN Racing’s Davey Todd kindly took-time-out to chat with Road Racing News.
King of The Roads Champion, for the third time in four years, the three-time TT winner’s thoughts, perspectives on specified topics, reads as follows:
RRN: What do you think about the future of Macau? Is there a way to improve the setup and schedule so that the bikes can get a decent run out more often?
DT: There is definitely-a-lot to improve here in terms of the schedule and how the bikes are concerned. I know it’s not necessarily bike-orientated out here, but in the same breath, I think one of the most popular races here is the bike race.
So, I think it could do with being prioritised a little bit more than it is. That’s my opinion. Obviously, I’m in the bike race, so I’m a bit biased.
But in the same breath, I know we’ve got some new people involved in running the Macau Grand Prix, and those people so far have been very good, extremely accommodating for us when we’ve discussed changes and things to improve.
They’ve took everything on board, what we’ve suggested. We’ll be making a few more suggestions for next year that will hopefully improve the amount of laps and just how much we’re going to see bikes next year at Macau.
Hopefully, they can accommodate that and we will be back for an even better event next year.
RRN: For next year’s road season or BSB, can you give any hints about what’s coming?
DT: I can’t say too much right now. Obviously, me and Pete are extremely excited about continuing with our 8TEN Racing team. It’s been a tough season because everything was put together so last minute, but we honestly couldn’t have done it without all the guys and girls involved in 8TEN.
The people behind the scenes are the ones that have really made it happen and pulled everything together this season for me and Pete. We’re really excited to start a second season together with a little bit more time to prepare and stuff like that.
The new second fastest bike racer in Guia Circuit racing history, continued:
Obviously, we’re both more focused on the roads for sure, but also, we’re both very passionate about short circuit racing. Where that leads us, I’m not exactly sure right now.
Of course, we’d like to stay in BSB, but where we are at the minute, we haven’t got a competitive package for a lot of reasons – the rules and what have you – but we’re trying to work on that also and hopefully things can change a little bit for next year and we can be back in BSB. If not, you might be seeing both of us somewhere else.
RRN: You did surprise everyone with the launch of 8TEN. What has surprised you about being a team owner, in either a good or bad way?
DT: I don’t know if there’s been any surprise in a good way! There’s a lot of surprise in a bad way about how expensive it is and how difficult it is to run a team.
Fortunately, we’ve got some great people who do their job fantastically well and don’t need to be told what to do, don’t need to be managed. Me and Pete, since round one, haven’t been involved in running the team as such.
We’ve got a fantastic team manager, Darren, and a bunch of awesome people in the team that do what they do. They don’t need instruction.
The twice National Superstock 1000 Champion, went onto add:
I think we’ve surprised a lot of people, not ourselves, but surprised a lot of people because we did get told, both of us got told that it would never work, two riders who are in competition with each other, partnering up and co-owning a team.
I’m really pleased to say that we’ve proved them very wrong. We have never got on so well. We are just finishing our first season together.
We’ve had so many laughs and good times along the way. It has been a pleasure to be co-owning the team with Pete and be a teammate with him. I am really looking forward to the future.
Words by Tom McGrenery
