2010 BSB rules debate: Stuart Hicken

The big debate on the future of the BSB technical regulations is on. BSB Race Director Stuart Higgs has stated his opinion. Now MCN opens the debate to the team bosses. 

BSB ran FIM regs in 2007, went to a more restrictive supersport-tune engine format last year and is now back to FIM spec again. The talk is now about how to cut costs. Here’s what Buildbase Hawk Kawasaki team owner Stuart Hicken says:

“If you said it’s one bike per rider you would still have a spare bike in bits in the truck. But if you have two bikes per rider, in a two-man team you’ll have four complete bikes, one in spares in the truck and half a dozen fuel tanks and sets of bodywork.

“So one bike per rider will save. And you’ll need less wheels and tyres etc.
If you say go to a control ECU, with no traction control, no anti-wheelie, no launch control – blank it all off. But who’s ECU are you going to use?

“One thing I’d like to see is open fuel (but still to strict octane etc regulations). We have a control fuel at present but if it was open I could get a fuel deal to save myself £700 a meeting.  An open fuel rule might even bring some more sponsorship back to the paddock from fuel companies.

“I’m not fussed about the Friday practice. We could lose it – most of the BSB teams can get on the pace pretty quickly anyway.

“One thing we can’t change is the engine spec. We’ve got to leave it as FIM WSB spec.

“In the other classes I’d like to see superstock engines sealed at the point of sale so that cannot be tampered with. I’d also like to see no Power Commanders, no kit anything.”