Valentine says BSB Evo debate is to come

BSB Evo kicks off this year. It’s a series within the MCE British Superbike Championship and is for superbikes with more standard ‘superstock’ tune engines and control ECUs.

The series organisers are trialling the class this year with a view to adopting the rules for the main championship in 2011 in a bid to cut costs.

But not everyone agrees it’s the way forward. Worx Suzuki boss Jack Valentine said: “I think we should keep the engine rules as they are.

“They are not as expensive to build and maintain as some people who got to the BSB team meetings would like everyone believe.

“We’ve run stock engine parts rules before (in 2008) and we ended up ditching them to go back to aftermarket parts and full tuning because it was cheaper.

“Okay, our team gets factory gearboxes but we could have them made for £1600. Stock gearbox worries me. They’re not built to take the stresses of racing. Blow one up and you could end up wrecking the entire engine.

“eople who fit Carillo rods can probably run them for three years. You can’t do that with stock rods.

“no, I think the Evo debate is to come. The privateers don’t even want it. Look how many have chosen to run in the BSB class.

“I know Jonathan Palmer (series boss) thinks we should all run stock bikes – even down to forks – but I don’t believe the fans would be happy with that.

“I keep hearing that we should be more like NASCAR. Well I’m all for some aspects of that but even though they run outdated pushrod engine designs their costs to go racing are astronomical.

“The engine development is as costly as F1. They’re spending F1-like budgets to go wind-tunnel testing. All to get that edge.

“The one thing I do agree on is cutting back on electronics. It’s a difficult one with the kit on road bikes now but we certainly don’t want to go to anywhere near the level of MotoGP and WSB electronics where the wheels don’t even step out of line. It’s killing the spectacle.”