Five-time MotoAmerica superbike champion Cameron Beaubier is leaving Moto2 at the end of his second season in the class to return to racing in the USA. When he explained his reasons for moving the 29-year-old Californian talked about homesickness and the intensity of Moto2, which in some ways is the world’s toughest racing category, because the majority of the bikes are exactly the same: same engines, same chassis , same tyres, same electronics, same suspension and so on, so it’s very difficult to make the difference and if you can’t make that difference you can only blame yourself, so it’s psychologically very tough.
Beaubier had a few good moments in Moto2: fifth at COTA last year, pole at COTA this year and fourth at Le Mans, just a tenth away from a first podium. After that he struggled and no doubt the psychological stress of fighting to gain tenths and hundredths every weekend took its toll.
“I used to handwrite gearing charts. I wouldn’t know where to start with that now!”
His Moto2 crew chief is Stuart Shenton, who has been working in the paddock longer than anyone else. His first GP, as a mechanic, was in 1975, when he fettled factory Kawasaki H1RW 500cc two-stroke triples.
After winning world titles with Kork Ballington at Kawasaki, Shenton became a crew chief at Honda, where he won the 1985 250cc World Championship with Freddie Spencer, later working with Wayne Gardner. In 1992 he moved to Suzuki, where he guided Kevin Schwantz to the 1993 500cc title, before working with Anthony Gobert, John Hopkins, Loris Capirossi and others.
Therefore Shenton is the perfect man to talk about how the intensity of grand prix racing has changed over the decades, not only for the rider, but for the mechanics and teams. I talked to Shenton before Beaubier made his recent announcement.
Shenton (back) celebrates Spencer’s historic and unique 500/250cc title double in 1985. Shenton ran his 250s, Jeremy Burgess (beard) his 500s
Shenton archives
Mat Oxley: The object of racing is always the same – to win the race – but how have things changed over the decades?
Stuart Shenton: This is going to sound corny – it’s the same but different. Back in the 1980s we were chasing half a second, now we’re chasing tenths and hundredths, because it’s impossible to find half a second now. In the old days we quite often saw riders getting lapped but that never happens now, which shows how the grids have closed up.
It is quite the same but there’s been a lot of things that have changed. When I worked with Freddie in 1985, cost wasn’t an issue. Honda built that one-off 250 just for him, then later there were some big factory battles between Honda and Yamaha and then Aprilia. Lots of money was spent on riders, bikes and development.
The current Moto2 class is a financial formula, to bring down the spiraling costs, and it’s also an equalizing formula.
Back in the 1970s everyone went out and bought a Yamaha TZ250, which was the same as the TZ250s that everyone else had, and the teams were very small. Then the factories got involved and were spending as much as they could. Now you have a bunch of guys using Kalex chassis and identical Triumph engines, with no factory teams and the teams are small again. So it’s gone full circle.
I suppose all those years ago the bikes were simpler but also more complicated.
Yes, getting the gearing and jetting right and a bit of suspension work were the main things.
But you were stripping the engines and changing parts all the time?
On a 250 you’d have the top end off after every session, change piston rings every day, pistons once a weekend and the crankshaft every couple of GPs.
And it was all before computers and data logging, so you could only go off the rider’s comments. I remember at Le Mans in 1985 Freddie was having some trouble with the 250 in practice, pulling too many revs, so I asked him if he was using all six gears. He said yes but he had one of his worst grid positions that year, then in the race he cleared off, because he used sixth gear!
Our gear ratios are 100% fixed these days but back then we changed gear ratios a lot and there were a lot of permutations – at least four different ratios for some gears and half a dozen for others. I used to handwrite gearing charts, using a calculator. I wouldn’t even know where to start with that now!
Beaubier leads the pack at Portimao last year, chased by Aron Canet, Sam Lowes and Xavi Vierge.
American racing
There’s less to do and less money around these days, so presumably your team is smaller now?
We’re a small team, two riders, with one bike each, plus maybe nine of us actually working on the bikes. Back in 1985 Freddie had two 250s, with two or three guys working on each bike, plus a few other Japanese engineers and designers working around us. Then we had our own Michelin guy, we had access to our own Showa suspension engineer, to the NGK spark plug guy and the Keihin carburettor guy. Now there’s one Dunlop guy for all Moto2 teams and a few guys from Kalex.