Ex-FB boy & BSB champ Shane Byrne raps!
When a renegade road tester cocked his leg over a race bike at Silverstone in 1999, little did anyone expect him to become the most successful rider in British Championship history. But Shakey’s not finished yet…
Shane Byrne turned 40 just before Christmas and 2017 sees him return as the five times and defending champion in one of the toughest series on the planet.
Reunited with his loyal and championship winning Be Wiser Ducati PBM team aboard the factory-backed Panigale R and armed with a year’s development under their belts, he started as red hot favourite to land title number six. But his season got off to the worst possible start when he crashed out at Donington Park’s opening round during the morning warm-up session and he was ruled out of action with concussion.
Away from the track, the son of a London train driver who was brought up on a council estate in Lambeth is happily married with two kids, financially secure and with property both here and in Spain.
Racing has been good to Shakey. But all good things come to an end and it’s surely getting to the point whereby he’s considering hanging up his leathers and retiring to the sunshine to sip sangria and chill by the pool?
Don’t you believe it. For here, in one of the frankest interviews he’s ever done, he tells us why he’s carrying on, what motivates him, and why he plans on a load more silverware, and how to spit the occasional dummy.
The numbers game
Since that first race back in 1999, Shakey’s career has been a long and successful one with 77 wins and counting as well as nearly 100 podiums from over 320 races in BSB. But for how much longer does he plan to race?
“A long time yet!” comes the response. “Age is just a number and as long as you’re enjoying doing something and can still be competitive, why pack it in? At this stage in my career, I’m enjoying racing more than ever and although we didn’t have the best of starts to the season this year, I’m not ready to pack it all in yet.
“Nowadays I’m preparing myself in a way that is not dissimilar to the way the guys prepare my bike. I’m a base model and through various bits of training and fitness, I keep improving, just like putting new parts on the Ducati in order to become stronger. Nothing will change overnight when I go from 40 to 41, I won’t morph into a fat pig or anything and there are guys winning races into their forties. Josh Hayes in AMA is a classic example, and look at Hizzy, Reynolds and Rutter racing and winning into their forties. Greg Hancock was 46 when he won the speedway world title and Joey was still winning TTs at 48.
“I’m still prepared to push myself and the first thing I think of when I crash is to get back up again and get back on the bike. At Donington, when I crashed in the warm-up, I was trying so hard to get the questions that the doctor was asking me right, as I wanted to race so badly. I was thinking that hard it made my head hurt even more but when there’s that desire, that fire in your belly, why think about stopping?
“I’ve had time to have a good think about things recently and it made me realise what I want to achieve in BSB and the numbers I want to hit, and we’re nowhere near those yet. I now have it clear in my head what I need to do and I’ll certainly be pushing to make it happen.
“There’s no reason why I still can’t be going strong for a few years yet, who knows?”
The rivals
Given Leon Haslam ran him close for the title last season, with a year back on the BSB circuits under his belt, along with a second significant year on the Kawasaki ZX-10R, which he also has developed, is it going to be harder this year than last?
“It would be foolish and complacent to think my focus is solely on Leon this season, there are plenty of other guys in the championship that can give it a real good Five down, many more to go (hopefully). shot. I proved when I came back fromWorld Superbikes and jumped on the Honda in 2011, people said I’d only ever done anything on a Ducati, but I scored more points than anyone else that season, although I didn’t win the championship.
“I don’t think there’s too much to read into the fact that when you come back, it’s harder. You don’t have to relearn a track, you just reacquaint yourself with it. But is he going to be stronger this year? Of course he is, but so is everybody else and so am I. If you stand still in racing, you go backwards, so I’ve worked a lot harder away from the track this year, perhaps more than I ever have, to the point that I’m nearly getting as much of a buzz out of training as being at the track and being competitive nowadays.
“One thing spurs on the other. Let the others think they’ve swum the Channel, they can crack on, I’m not focussing on any one
rider, my focus is solely on me winning as many races as possible between now and the first Showdown round at Oulton Park in September.
Ultimately, that’s what determines who wins the title, you can’t rely on luck, or someone having a meltdown or getting injured, or their bike breaking.
“I, like anyone else, have to get my head down, take the knocks on the chin, get up and come back stronger.”
On Josh Brookes
Shakey’s been around long enough to have seen most riders come and go and the likeable Cockney doesn’t tend to make enemies, he prefers to beat them on track. But one rider not on his Christmas card list due to past exchanges is Aussie Josh Brookes, who is not shy of a bit of provocation.
Byrne laughs as he responds: “Listen, I could not care less about what he thinks about me. He’ll be disappointed if he thinks certain things are going to bug me, as it hasn’t worked so far. Doing what he did a couple of years ago (when a certain war of words ended in Josh posting some illicit pictures on social media – Ed) was way below the belt. Posting pictures on the internet of my wife is out of order and was a step too far. Whoever thought it was a good idea and would rattle me were disappointed.
“It’s simple, we really just don’t get on but I’m not there to be his friend. I don’t know what the issue is, maybe you should speak with him, but I’ve not done anything other than beat him a lot more times than he’s beaten me, so that must really upset him.
But there are more things, other than me, for him to worry about this season. He made a big thing about going to World Superbikes but flopped and now he’s back in BSB.
“Believe it or not, whilst I’m not keen on him as a person, I really do enjoy racing against him because he’s a really hard and determined rider.
“There’s enough respect between us on track that we have some great battles and he’s very fair. I’d sooner race him all day long rather than someone who tries to run you off the track, it’s just his antics off the track I don’t like.”
Testing times
Did the lack of pre-season testing have an effect on what happened at Donington?
“I’m not going to lie, I was very anxious going into Donington this year and I’m not going to make too big a deal out of the fact that we didn’t do as much testing as I’d have liked, but there were reasons for that, including that we were waiting for new parts to come.
“You look at Josh Brookes and out of the five days they were testing in Spain, four were wet and one was damp, so they were in a similar boat with limited track time. That said, he did a World Superbike race and got some valuable track time for that in Australia, so maybe that got him up to speed.
“You spend all winter in the gym training and preparing yourself but there is no substitute for actually being on the bike. What happens is when you find a problem during the season, when you’re properly dialled in and on top of your game, you sort it but the problem remains unsolved if you’re rusty.
“At Donington, I was going into Redgate thinking that I was going way too fast and just managed to get round, thinking it was close, but actually it wasn’t, because you’re going a second a lap slower than you did in the race six months earlier, when your brain is up to speed.
“The new parts will be here soon and we will get to test them when we can, but looking back, when I crashed out in the morning warm-up, I was second fastest on a tyre I don’t like and wouldn’t have raced