Hickman aims for TT clean sweep
Close-knit privateer team face their biggest challenge yet as they look to win on BMW, Yamaha and Norton
‘We’re a bunch of mates who go racing – and we do alright at it’
Teamwork makes the dreamwork. That’s the motto proudly on display on the wall of the Smiths Racing garage.
The close-knit, familyowned team have quickly risen to the top of international road racing. Indeed, the formidable partnership of Smiths and Peter Hickman continued to dominate in 2019 despite the handicap of the very late arrival of the brand-new, significantly different, BMW S1000RR which the team quickly turned into a winner.
But in 2020 Smiths face their biggest challenge yet. While the development of the S1000RR continues, they also now have a bespoke Norton Superlight to build from scratch and a new Yamaha R6 to develop, the latter replacing the Triumph Daytona 675 with which Hickman won last year’s Supersport TT.
‘Just another bike’
That is some challenge considering that team manager, and Hickman crew chief, Darren Jones, is the only full-time team member involved.
Jones is joined two or three days a week (during pre-season) by mechanics James Buckingham and Luke Brown, who’s worked with Hickman since 2016.
But if it’s a small team with a big project, Jones isn’t overly concerned. “The BMWs we’ve built before, so we’ve some idea of what we’re doing and it’s not a massive job,” he told MCN. “The Yamaha, yes, we’ve not done it before, but it’s just a bike. It’s got an engine and two wheels. It’s just deciding what we put on it. “The biggest project is the Norton. We’ve never built a bike for the Lightweight class before and everything is bespoke. You can’t just buy it off the shelf, so we’re having to get everything made. We’re trying to think outside the box. For example: we’re fitting Moto2 forks to the bike. It’s an exciting project but it’ll come down to the same thing it always does – and that’s time.” The team’s main focus, now with official manufacturer support, remains the BMW, however Smiths won’t cut back on either time or money with the Yamaha and Norton. In stark contrast to 2019, Jones hopes to have the BMW Superbike and Superstock machines 95% complete by the end of January.
Mates going racing
Smiths may be small, but they’re experienced, knowledgeable and most importantly all get on.
“At the TT you spend a lot of time together – more time than you spend at home, really. We’ve built this team over a few years and I’d worked with everybody in the team before even coming here. “I think that, because we’ve all been around, we know who’s good, who’s bad, who fits and who doesn’t. And we are now, in my opinion, a bunch of mates who go racing. And we seem to do alright at it!”
Jones has previously worked with Buckingham at GB Moto Honda in 2011, whilst also working with Hickman at the three-rider JG Speedfit Kawasaki team in 2016. History was made that year when Hickman, James Ellison and Leon Haslam all finished on the podium at Oulton Park.
High expectations
Smiths are a team used to winning and this year may bring even more success. “I would love to equal or beat Hutchinson’s five race wins,” Jones smiles. “If we matched, that would be great. We certainly could do, because if it wasn’t for the technical issue we had last year in the Senior we’d have won four. “There are so many variables though: you have the weather, breakdowns, somebody else breaking down and getting in the way, backmarkers etc. You just don’t know what can happen.”