Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

The official Kawasaki Road Racing Team has retained the services of riders Eric Bostrom, Tommy Hayden and Tony Meiring for 2003, but there will be several key personnel changes on the crew.

Eric Bostrom’s Superbike Crew Chief Matt Worbes is leaving the team and going to work for Rob Muzzy. “Yeah,” said Worbes, confirming his departure from the Kawasaki Road Racing Team and return to Muzzy, his previous employer. “I’m making a change for a lot of personal reasons. (I’m) leaving, moving back up north where I’m from. I’m originally from Washington state, but I was living in Bend, Oregon before I moved to California and started working for Kawasaki. I’m just moving back.

“I feel bad for leaving Eric (Bostrom). He was really great to work with. It took us a while to start working good together last year, but we had a good year. It would be fun to do it again, but like I say, I guess I got burnt out a little bit last year. Lot of work and just missed out on being at home.

“I’m going to be working on new products and R&D (research and development), developing new products (for Muzzy).” Speaking at Daytona International Speedway, Worbes said he wasn’t hired to specifically work on the Proton Team KR V5 four-stroke MotoGP engine development program, slated to take place at Muzzy’s race shop, but added, “I hope I will be involved in that. I have a lot of experience with dynos. If that comes up, I would be excited to be involved in that project.”

“He has some personal reasons. I think it’s some family stuff,” said Kawasaki Team Manager Michael Preston, when asked about Worbes’ departure from the team. “So unfortunately for us he’s leaving, but everything’s on good terms. Like I said, he’s here to finish this test, and who knows, in the future he might be joining us at a few more races and tests. Everything’s good. It’s just for him and us an unforeseen, unfortunate turn of events. For sure, family comes first. We all think racing to the bitter end, but family is very important.”

Preston said that Dan Fahie will be Eric Bostrom’s new Crew Chief. Fahie worked for Nicky Hayden over the last few seasons but was not present at Daytona.

Theo Lockwood has also joined the Kawasaki team as an engine development specialist. Lockwood spent the 2002 season as Chris Walker’s Crew Chief on the Kawasaki World Superbike team after working with Damon Buckmaster on the Graves Motorsports Yamaha outfit in 2001.

Lockwood and returning Kawasaki mechanic Scott Stauffer are currently developing an overbore 750cc engine for Bostrom’s ZX-7RR Superbike, but the new engine was not ready for testing at Daytona.

“We’re waiting on some parts to get in,” said Lockwood. “We have a motor that’s somewhat together right now with some experimental parts that we’re just trying out. I would think by early-to-mid-January we should have something up and running, something that’s relatively close to our final spec.”

When asked how the overbore engine would differ from the 750cc engine, Lockwood said, “I would think it would have a little more torque. I don’t expect the power to go up a whole lot, but I think the torque’s going to go up. It’s going to go up so it should flatten it (torque curve) out some, and I hope that would help acceleration.”

Building a bigger bore version of a factory Superbike engine is more complicated than just punching out the cylinders. “Yes,” confirmed Lockwood. “It’s a fair amount of parts that we’re changing. Obviously, we’re only changing the bore, which is all that’s allowed by the AMA, but we’re changing a fair number of parts. Basically, top end stuff.”

Another interesting addition to the Kawasaki team is Brian Kinney as Tony Meiring’s engine builder. Kinney spent the last two season’s working on factory Yamaha motocross/supercross racer Tim Ferry’s bikes, last year on the YZ426F four-stroke.

“I just wanted to cut down on the travel a little bit,” said Kinney, when asked how a motocross mechanic finds his way onto a road racing team. “The motocross racing schedule is about 32 events, including the U.S. Open and some of the starter races for Supercross. I wanted to cut down on the travel a little bit so I can spend some time with the family. The road racing schedule is a lot lighter than the motocross schedule.

“Plus, I kind of felt I was at a little bit of a standstill as far as learning things, in general, stagnant in my career. I thought it was a good opportunity to come into road racing, which is something I was involved in before I ever got involved in motocross. So it’s actually a return to road racing for me. I really enjoy working on the engines. I’m learning a lot more than I’ve ever really known about working on engines and development and what not.”

Kinney’s previous involvement in road racing was as a rider, an employee at motorcycle dealerships and a general enthusiast for the sport.

Kinney will work with Meiring’s Crew Chief Jeremy Robinson, who moves over from Bostrom’s Superbike squad to work with Kinney and chassis man Dave Behrend.

Joining Crew Chief Joey Lombardo and engine tuner James Hashimoto on Tommy Hayden’s crew is Ross Nearpass. Nearpass formerly worked with the Radar Yamaha team in the Australian National road race series, tuning for top riders Kevin Curtain, in 2002, and Jamie Stauffer, in 2001.

Data acquisition specialist Mike Perez has left the Kawasaki team to join Cosworth Racing on the CART series, and Howard Rosoff will fill Perez’s position. Rosoff formerly worked in the car racing world.