PARKALGAR Honda boss Simon Buckmaster has made the bold claim that he has done more in nurturing the current level of British talent than the ACU.
In a statement on his 'Simon Says' column he discusses the current hot prospects running in the World Championships and seeks to answer the question of 'What has the ACU done to help these riders', contentiously Buckmaster points the answer to himself: "I have to say that I have done more personally than the ACU to help British talent in recent years and that’s a damning indictment on our governing body for bike sport.
"I don’t want to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet here and but I have never been approached by anyone form (sic) the ACU about helping young British riders. Strange since our team has such a good history of working with such riders…" continued Buckmaster
The grounds for his comments revolve around working with multiple prospects who can now be found in the top flight championships of bike sport. Despite Cal Crutchlowspending his early days in the ACU Academy, it is Buckmaster who continued his growth, with Cal winning the British Supersport championship with Buckmaster's Nokia N Gage team.
Spotting this talent, he discussed how after moving to a managerial role with Rizla Suzuki he brought Crutchlow to the BSB team, with the hope of Eugene Laverty joining him, but Paul Denning wanted Chris Walker and Laverty had 250GP aims.
Buckmaster makes it aware that he was in part responsible for Laverty's return to form, running up front in World Supersport for his Parkalgar squad before moving on to the factory Yamaha WSB team. Crutchlow can now be seen in the pinnacle of bike racing as part of the Monster Tech 3 team in MotoGP.
The damnation against the ACU continues with Buckmaster's assertion regarding the growth of other riders' talent, Jonathan Rea came to fruition thanks to the Honda Racing and the UK Red Bull Rookies team, Tom Sykes coming through what he 'believes' the Superteens and Leon Camier who was in British 125 when Padgett's gave him a chance - he then joined Cal in the Nokia N Gage team - before becoming BSB champion for the now defunct GSE team.
Britain currently has some big name riders competing in the Moto2 championship with Bradley Smith and Scott Redding, in what Buckmaster says, "Maybe the ACU should thank the Spanish Federation in this case." The current crop of 125 riders, including Danny Kent and Harry Stafford, again he puts these riders progression to the World stage down to the Red Bull Rookies initiative.
In closing Buckmaster makes a call to the new ACU chairman, Brian Higgins to make 'sweeping changes' to put the British racing Federation at the forefront of getting "our riders up the ladder into World Championship racing."
He concludes: "On behalf of my team and our company Performance Technical Racing I can honestly say I would welcome the chance to work with the ACU in any way we can so we can all see British riders showing their true potential. Over to you Mr Higgins I as I am sure most other team managers would welcome a call from you to see what we can all do to help you."
Buckmaster's latest prospect is Sam Lowes, who after winning the British Supersport championship last year, has impressed with his performance in the first rounds on the World series. Lowes has arrived at tracks he has never ridden before and harassed experienced riders and proven himself to be a front runner. At Assen he was knocked out of a potential victory after a dramatic high-side.
