Troy Herfoss Interview – Penrite Honda man ready to rock SMP

ASBK 2023

Round Two – Sydney Motorsport Park

G’day Troy, thanks for the chat today, and congratulations on now being a two-time dad!  From the socials pics it looks like all fun and games with the younguns, but I am sure the reality it not quite that instaperfect?

Herf – “Thanks mate, it’s been quite an event for the last two weeks, but yeah we’re pretty lucky, everyone is sleeping ok and I’m just trying to find my place at the moment. The older one doesn’t want to know dad, and the young one doesn’t need dad at the moment, so I’m just trying to win points wherever I can.”

You had good race pace at the Phillip Island season opener it seemed, good enough to battle with everyone but Josh (Waters) really.  You satisfied with your performance at the Phillip Island?

Herf – “It was a really good round for me, I did my best, I gave a hundred per cent and made minimal mistakes, so I think I’m in a pretty good position moving forward really.”

And you had a successful outing at Queensland Raceway last weekend, where you looked to have the wood on Mike Jones, and scored the fastest lap in all three dry races on your way to three wins. That’s a good stretch of the legs before we head to SMP?

Herf – “I was able to ride a few clean races, with a reasonably solid pace and that’s all I can ask for really. It would have been nice if the showers stayed away, there was a few other things I would have liked to tick off from a riders perspective, but pretty happy with where I am at to be honest.”

At the SMP test you made progress across the two days but didn’t quite manage to sneak into the 1m29s, unlike Josh, Cru and Mike, oh so close but not quite there… Do you think you have made a lot of progress with the bike since we were up in Sydney early last month?

Herf – “That 30.024 seems so far from Jonesy’s 29.997… (laughs) In all seriousness, I’m within half a second I think of Josh, I’m not really too worried, its one of them tracks where you get a lot out of the tyre. When you look at the fourth and fifth laps, not that many guys did four or five laps in a row, but when you look at that, the pace does drop away quite a bit. So I think I’m pretty solid over a race distance and I’m starting to feel like I can put the bike where-ever I need to put it, so I’ll just hang in there the first few laps and see how we go. But I think we made a bit of a step forward to be honest, with the bike, so it’s looking pretty good.”

The last time we raced ASBK at SMP was at the 2019 season finale. At that round you agonisingly missed out on the title to Mike Jones on the 1299 Ducati, after what I judged to be some of the finest races of your career at SMP that weekend. The way you rode that front tyre so, so hard into some of the turns in that 2019 finale was amazing, I couldn’t believe that front tyre held on again and again, I almost had to look the other way at times. 

It was perhaps the most outwardly visible pure aggression, not to other riders, but how you rode the motorcycle, that I have ever seen you display on a bike. Despite the frustration of the loss, I do remember that you were still pumped with what you had put down on the track that day. Is that how you remember it?

Herf – “I’m glad it looked that way Trev, because there was definitely a lot of effort going in by both Mike and I for that race. Definitely, I know for me, I was able to extract all that out of my body, my team, my bike, at the end of the day, that’s all I can really ask for. The result wasn’t what I hoped for on that day, but I definitely felt like I’d done everything I could. It’s such a fun memory looking back at that, and Mike and I – we really don’t catch up a lot – but if we get time or we start talking about 2019 Race Two at SMP, usually a few minutes pass by pretty quickly.”

The Fireblade has changed a lot since 2019. It now has massively different engine characteristics with storming top end horsepower, at the expense of the traditional Fireblade mid-range drive and smooth power delivery. This was part of a quantum shift in how to do business across the whole sportsbike world. Manufacturers now make engines with the most horsepower they can, then rely on electronics to smooth things out and make them controllable. And despite even the might of full HRC backing and an army of engineers the World Superbike squad have been struggling to put that power to the ground. 

Obviously that is also now a huge black hole of time development wise in order to tune these modern day sportsbikes to get the best out of them, especially when the tyres have gone away. And we know that even despite our short races, tyre life is absolutely crucial in our championship. Is tuning the traction, wheelie and engine brake control parameters been more of a focus in the development of the bike with the team of late? Were you able to learn anything from the HRC guys at Phillip Island?

Herfoss: “That’s probably a question for the tech guys really. For me its I think some of the things you’ve said are pretty accurate, as far as the way they are tuning the bikes these days, and using the electronics to get the most out of them. From a rider’s perspective, the electronics definitely help us as a rider be a lot more competitive over a whole race distance, some of the times we’re able to achieve on a consistent basis, we never dreamed of in the past. I think that’s purely down to the bikes are a little easier to ride when the grip goes away.

“They are definitely not easier to go fast on, they are still, you are still riding a motorbike and they can still bite you when you turn the throttle too hard. As far as diving into that question too much, I don’t really know what we needed to do at Phillip Island, or from what you’ve seen – I guess you’re talking about the first round – all I can say really is that I think now, more now than ever, you are seeing bikes that are just better in certain areas.

“It used to be a comment you’d hear all the time, but I didn’t really believe it. In our championship I think all the bikes were pretty similar for a while. Now I don’t even say there’s one bike that’s way better, it’s just that in certain scenarios some bikes are better. Like talking about longer corners, faster tracks, shorter tracks, tighter tracks. I’ve just gone from Phillip Island to Queensland Raceway two really different tracks, and honestly it was like I was riding on a cloud at Queensland Raceway. A very similar bike rolled out and was an absolute delight to ride for short distance, long distance, anywhere in the middle. So at Phillip Island for whatever reason I couldn’t get the bike to go around the track as fast as Josh. I was right in the battle though so I can’t really be disappointed.”

From that, are you saying in regards to the electronic set-up you largely stay out of it? And instead let Paul and Charlie do their side of things for you in the pits, just let them do their job?

Herf – “That’s right, this is all pretty new to Australian Superbike, we’ve got back from Covid and there’s been big steps from a lot of people and it seems to have come electronically. For us it is still pretty new and in our structure, we’ve got Paul as my crew chief and he’s looking at data a lot, but purely chassis stuff, Charlie is our electronics guy I guess you’d say. They work really well together. One calls one shot, the other calls the other. But at the end of the day it has all got to work and make sense in Paul’s mind, because he’s the crew chief. But it’s been an interesting journey really, and there’s still so much to be gained from electronics and the chassis side really, because the bikes are a lot longer than they used to be. This bike is a lot different than the old one, so yeah everyone is making big gains everywhere. But it’s sort of like the new toy in the house for Australian superbikes, the electronics. So that seems to be where a lot of the focus is going at the moment.”

Trev – It’s funny you say the bikes are longer now, sometimes these days in the pits I have to do a double take at the distance between the front sprocket and the back of the bikes, it really stands out on the BMW actually. They must be making chains a lot longer than they used to…  But getting back to the electronics are you doing anything out on track these days, with the buttons you have on the bars, are you changing the mapping during the race, or anything like that at this stage, or just running through on one map and that’s it?

Herfoss: “Pretty much since World Superbike last year I’ll go through all three modes – power modes in a race – depending on tyre life and it’s pretty basic for us really. Well sorry not basic, but they explain to me in a basic way so I don’t have to think about it too much. I’s definitely not basic what Charlie is doing, but to put it in basic terms, you’ve got a new tyre map, a long race map essentially for just after the first few laps, and then pretty much a map for if the grip does go away. It’s explained to me in a basic way and that’s how I like it.”

Trev: Thanks for the chat, that’s some great insights. See you at the next showdown under lights in Sydney later this month.

The second round of the 2023 mi-bike Australian Superbike Championship will be held over two evenings at Sydney Motorsport Park, Friday March 24 and Saturday March 25th. Herfoss heads into this second round equal second on points with Mike Jones.  Full practice, qualifying and race schedule below.  The event will be live on TV Saturday night on SBS Viceland, with the regular ASBK show on Sunday from 1300 including replays from the weekend action.

SMP ASBK Schedule

Friday 24th March
Time		Class	Event	Duration
930	950	Riders Briefing (SSP300, OJC, Masters)	B1	20 mins
1000	1020	Riders Briefing (SBK, SSP)	B2	20 mins
1100	1125	Supersport	FP1	25 mins
1130	1150	SSP300 / R3 cUP	FP1	20 mins
1155	1225	Superbike	FP1	30 mins
1230	1245	bLU cRU	FP1	15 mins
1250	1305	Superbike Masters	FP1	15 mins
1310	1335	Supersport	FP2	25 mins
1335	1405	ASBK TV Track Time – Drinks Break	30 mins
1405	1410	Superbike	FP2	30 mins
1440	1500	SSP300 / R3  Cup	FP2	20 mins
1505	1520	Superbike Masters	FP2	15 mins
1525	1540	bLU cRU	FP2	15 mins
1545	1610	Supersport	Q1	25 mins
1615	1635	SSP300 / R3 Cup	Q1	20 mins
1640	1710	Superbike	FP3	30 mins
1720	1735	bLU cRU	Q1	15 mins
1740	1755	Superbike Masters	Q	15 mins
1755	1900	Dinner – ASBK Pillion Rides	65 mins
Night Sessions
1900	1920	SSP300 / R3 Cup	Q2	20 mins
1925	1950	Supersport	Q2	25 mins
1955	2010	bLU cRU	Q2	15 mins
2015	2035	Superbike	Q1	25 mins
2045	2100	Superbike	Q2	15 mins
2100	2110	ASBK TV & Media Interviews	ASBK TV	10 mins
2110	2135	SSP300 / R3 Cup	R1	20 mins
2140	2200	bLU cRU	R1	6 Laps
2205	2220	Superbike Masters	R1	6 Laps
Saturday 25th March
Time		Class	Event	Duration
1400	1405	bLU cRU	WUP	5 mins
1410	1415	Supersport	WUP	5 mins
1420	1430	Superbike	WUP	10 mins
1435	1440	SSP300 /  R3 Cup	WUP	5 mins
1445	1450	Superbike Masters	WUP	5 mins
1450	1510	ASBK Pillion Rides – Drinks Break	20 mins
1510	1530	bLU cRU	R2	6 Laps
1540	1610	Supersport	R1	11 Laps
1620	1655	Superbike	R1	13 Laps
1705	1730	SSP300 / R3 Cup	R2	8 Laps
1740	1755	Superbike Masters	R2	6 Laps
1755	1930	Dinner – ASBK Pitlane Walk	95 mins
Night Races
1930	1950	bLU cRU	R3	6 Laps
2000	2030	Supersport	R2	11 Laps
2040	2105	SSP00	R3	8 Laps
2115	2150	Superbike	R2	13 Laps
2200	2215	Superbike Masters	R3	6 Laps

Superbike Championship Points after Round One

2023 ASBK Calendar