Looking forward to the new British Superbikes season, we caught up with Rory Skinner at the Carole Nash MCN show at Excel in London. The sensational rookie of 2021, in his second BSB premier class year with Kawasaki FS-3 Racing told us about his training and ambitions, in his usual personable way.
BD: Rory, I saw you earlier and we were talking about your training over the Winter and that I had seen pics of you riding in the skatepark etc., so what have you been doing, we know you work in your dad’s shop.
Rory: Well, I have actually stopped working in my dad’s shop. After Brands Hatch me and my dad sat down and talked about everything, it was lovely working in the shop and getting an understanding of everything, but I felt it was hampering my racing, because I was not getting the time to process things, after a race, how everything had worked. Aside from that I am now on a training programme at Loughborough University, along with Taz Mackenzie and Jason O’Halloran, we are all on a similar programme, cycling, gym sessions, nutrition, psychology. I have been doing my mountain biking, and after Brands I did a mountain bike race on my local hill and won that, so I was over the moon about that. So it’s been non-stop really.
BD: You mentioned you were going out to Spain, is that for testing?
Rory: For me it’s about training. We’re only allowed ten days a year for testing in BSB, and that’s mostly taken up with the official tests. It’s really about transport costs etc., it’s a lot of cost, so it’s to help the smaller teams like us as the bigger teams could afford to do more testing, so it’s quite nice to be on a level playing field, if you know what I mean.
BD: Yes, and there is always the negative side of testing, as with Tarran’s recent accident. So, do you do much motorbike related training?
Rory: I got a motoX bike off Kawasaki, which I am very grateful for, but I openly admit I am no moto crosser myself, I have been road racing through and through, so I don’t have a motoX background. Me and my mates we all have motoX bikes and we go out riding and it was a lot of fun, but come January I had a couple of sketchy moments, didn’t hurt myself, so I said, you know what we’re getting close to the season, I am working hard in the gym and on my MTB, so I will clean it (the Kawasaki) make it look pretty, put it in the showroom and come back to it in October!
What happened to Taz, well he is British Superbike Champion, you’re no slouch if you’re British Superbike Champion so I am sure he was riding within himself, these things can happen, someone might have dropped some coolant, oil. I am pretty gutted (for Taz) to be honest, but we all have to train, there is risk involved. At the end of the day, we are all adrenaline junkies. I ride my mountain bike because it keeps my brain sharp, it’s the closest thing I have found to a motorbike, for reflex, you have to pick your braking zones, you have got to pick your line choices, look ahead, work out what’s coming, change your line etc. I do my training to enjoy it, because you have to enjoy it, or you lose your motivation. We’re riding bikes at over 150 mph on the track, so you have to do something in the off season to keep your adrenaline levels up.
BD: You’re all set up with FS-3 racing again for the season, going back to the bigger teams and more money, how much is it a level playing field?
Rory: It’s tough really, every bike is different and there are different levels of support. I am really grateful to Kawasaki this year for the extra support, Kawasaki UK went to Kawasaki Europe and pushed for that, and it’s really nice to have that. We will see what the upgrades are like this year, it will be tough, it’s BSB, we will just focus on ourselves.
My first full season in BSB was 2019, we were running a Supersport 600 with my dad out of the shop, and we had a lot of stress sorting things out (Rory of course went on to win the British Supersport Championship in 2020 {BD}). So, last year, it was my first year riding the tracks on a superbike, so it was tough, especially as BSB is closer than it’s ever been. Matt my crew chief, he’s very experienced, he’s a great guy, and in free practice he would set me a time and say if you get to this I will be more than happy. I would come back in, beating the time he’d set, and I’d go great, and he would say yes, BUT… I would be only 0.6 off and I would be P13, I think at Brands actually it was 0.3 and I was P13. That’s the closest of any championship in the world.
BD: Final question; BSB this year, the future, any ideas?
Rory: You know what it’s like, you can never say I want to be here or I want to be there, things change in the motorsport world. Where would I like to be? I want to be on the world stage. If it’s Moto2 great, if it’s World Superbikes great, my goal from being a child has always been to be world champion, I still have that goal set in my head. I think there is a great opportunity with Kawasaki if things go well this season, obviously we have not spoken about anything, they have a great team in WSB, they have a great privateer team, there are a lot of opportunities about. My mind and my focus is on this season, as you know when results come things start to happen. If my riding can be as good as I think it is, and how much I believe in myself, then I think we can make good progress, and so I could be speaking to you this time next year and it could be a different story.
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Author: Martin Northern
Founder of Bike Directory
