Peter Hickman
Hicky gets pumped at the season opener
Finally we have some proper racing to talk about and round one of BSB is in the bag, but before we get into all of that, June started with round four of the Motul Oil Ohvale UK Cup at Ellough Park in Norwich. We had 26 entries in the 110 Cup and we’re now up to 13 entries in the 160 class, which is growing nicely. It’s been really interesting to see the classes growing, but even more so watching the kids develop, learn and get faster as they go from race to race; it’s all a big learning curve.
I raced my 190 too, and it went pretty well. I won a couple or races, finished on the podium in a couple of others, and even crashed out of a race – if you’re not crashing, then you’re not trying, right? If you’re an adult thinking about having a go, don’t be put off by the size of the bikes – set up well, these Ohvales are unbelievably fun!
It’s been a manic month at PHR HQ and we’ve took a massive delivery of 35 Ohvales from Italy; 20 of them are the all-new FIM 160 bikes built for the new class of 10 to 14 year olds. We’ve got a five-round UK championship starting in July and it looks set to be an exciting series, with a round at Cadwell Park on the mountain circuit and another at Silverstone on Stowe circuit during the MotoGP build-up. The winner is invited to go to the Valencia MotoGP and compete in an Ohvale World Championship, which brings the national Ohvale champions together.
Last weekend was round one of the British Superbikes and we had an awesome showing. It was the debut race for the all-new BMW M 1000 RR, and we had our first front-row start, first pole position and first podium with the all-new FHO Racing Team, too. I was really happy with my qualifying in fifth, because it has never been my strong point and I knew we had good race pace.
Unfortunately, I suffered with bad arm pump from half race distance onwards in all three races, but thankfully I was able to pull enough of a gap in the early stages of the races, so I wasn’t under too much threat at the end when I was struggling. I’m actually trying to sort an operation to fix the arm pump before round two at Knockhill, so hopefully that’ll come off. I’d like to wish my team mate Xavi a big ‘get well soon’, as he injured his wrist during practice. Hopefully he’ll be back for the next race.
PHR has been flat-out, and on the racing front, our man Max Stainton won all three races at Mallory on the PHR Performance BMW at Thundersport. I’m really happy with his progress, so hopefully he’ll be making his National Superstock debut sooner than we first thought...
On to Knockhill next. We had a good test there last month, so we are ready to roll. Fingers crossed the arms are no longer a problem.