70 MOTORCYCLE CLASSICS September/October 2019
become. Maybe that’s why Li’I John took
to it so quickly, as he was the only man
until Max Biaggi more than a decade
later to have won World titles in both
GP and Superbike racing.
The Honda revved like a 2-stroke,
but it still drove as cleanly as a road
bike from 6,000rpm upwards. From
10,000rpm on, things happened fast-
er, then from 13,000rpm it took on
the mantle of a 2-stroke GP racer. No
4-stroke I’d ridden before had ever
picked up speed like this. Despite the
SBK class 70.4-pound weight penalty, ITeam manager par excellence Neil Tuxworth headed
Honda Britain’s road racing efforts for more than 20 years,
during which he masterminded Honda winning three World
Superbike titles with American riders John Kocinski and Colin
Edwards, as well as copious Isle of Man TT victories via the
likes of Joey Dunlop and John McGuinness, and a succession
of British Superbike Championship wins, most notably with
Japanese expat Ryuichi Kiyonari. A skilled racer himself, who
finished second in the Isle of Man TT as well scoring a Manx
GP win and five third places in TT races,
Neil scored many points finishes on TZ
Yamahas in Grand Prix racing, and also
competed successfully in motocross, sand
racing and even ice racing. He was the
man who signed John Kocinski to replace
Carl Fogarty in the Castrol Honda World
Superbike team for 1997 — leading to
a successful outcome for the hitherto
unconsidered RC45.AC: Neil, the RC45 had a troubled
birth, but eventually it became a cham-
pion bike. How did it happen?
NT: It took a little while. When we first
started using it in 1994, we didn’t win a
single race that first year. I think 1995 with
Aaron was the first time we actually won
a race, in Albacete, and then we backed
that up with a victory in Sentul at the end
of the year. But then of course, in 1996
Carl Fogarty came on board and won four
races for us on the RC45 to finish fourth in
the World series, two places behind Aaron
who finished runner-up to Troy Corser — so it all looked pretty
promising for us in 1997. But then funnily enough Carl told
us, “That bike will never win a World Championship,” before
returning to Ducati for 1997 — he swapped positions withJohn Kocinski, and John did indeed win that World title for us
on the RC45, and in the process of doing so beat Carl on his
Ducati! It was a very interesting and rewarding year working
with John.
AC: John Kocinski had a reputation as being a difficult per-
son. Was that your experience?
NT: On the contrary — he was a very professional person.
Once word got out that John Kocinski was joining our team,
the doomsayers chimed in big time. I obviously didn’t know
John, but I’d heard all the horror stories
about him. I tried to look into everything,
and what I realized pretty quickly after
having met John was that teams might
have been very good at looking after John
at a race track, but they’d not been very
good at organizing things off-track — and
John likes to be organized. So we made
sure that we organized everything for
him, not just his racing, but basically his
entire life while he was with the team.
That meant his meals, his travel plans, his
time between races — everything. We just
made things work for him. So it wasn’t
like, racing’s over for this weekend, good-
bye John, see you in two weeks’ time, get
on with it. He became part of our group
and part of our team, and I actually had a
lot of laughs with John. We got on really
well together, and it was a really nice com-
pliment when he said at the end of the
season that it was the most enjoyable year
he’d ever had in motorcycle racing. I think
that was a great compliment to all of us in
the team, because we really enjoyed working with him.
I like John. Racing needs characters, and John was definitely
a character. I think a lot of people got the wrong impression
of him — I think if you were OK with John, John was OK withLife with John:
Castrol Honda Team Manager Neil Tuxworth interview
Neil Tuxworth, Honda Britian’s team
manager for more than two decades.Cathcart aboard the RC45.
When twisted to full bore, the
4-stroke machine pleasantly and
suddenly “takes on the mantle”
of a 2-stroke machine.