"I think a decent job after I retire would be to work in the American championship."

Those were the words of Anthony 'Slick' Bass in the postings of this very website just a couple of years ago. After leaving the Fogarty camp following four WSC titles, Slick filtered through several other gigs, eventually retreating to his home in the Isle of Man earlier this year to start his own business.

"After leaving Carl, I started off working for Michael Rutter in the Ray Stringer team. I found it difficult to continue in that team, so I left there. Got a job offer with Gobert with the Bimota team, went out to Italy to work with Virginio and that, and the team collapsed actually as I arrived in Italy, so I had to turn around and come all the way back."

An offer to work with Ben Bostrom fizzled. Frustrated, Bass regrouped and concentrated on his tuning business. Then the call came a few weeks ago from Hansen Motorcycles to join the new team there as Scott Russell's chief mechanic, and, as the British might say, Bob's your uncle.

"I live in Wisconsin. It's fucking cold there," Bass jokes. But he smiles, he's happy to be working on racebikes again, and with his friend Scott twisting the throttle, he knows the results are likely to be successful even though it's not quite sorted yet.

"He's a little bit rusty of course," Slick explains, referring to Russell, "but the first time riding a new bike, he will be. I've been giving him two bikes that are slightly different in the rear end and front end to see if he can pick up on something. I wanted to give him two bikes that were the same, but we're a bit short on springs and bits and bobs, so I made a compromise, and he picked up most of the stuff that was different, which was good, and we actually got a direction to go in now to make the thing better."

Having been a part of the factory Ducati operation for so many years with Foggy, Slick is keen on what makes the Italian twins go fast. I asked him if he though the HMC operation has what it takes parts-wise.

"We've got a lot of good chassis stuff. There are a few things I know we're missing but obviously with the Dunlops, there's got to be some loose ends that we've got to come up with because of the Dunlop tires. They'll make the handling a lot different, I think for the better. The Dunlop seems to work better on the Ducati - I think Neil Hodgson proved that in the UK. But saying that, Michelins are a very good tire - Kocinski loves them - he reckons they're a better tire than the Dunlop, so with that sort of thing, it's down to rider preference."

If anything has changed with the 996 in the year that Bass has been absent, it won't be a problem. He adds, "actually, missing out on this year with Carl really hasn't done me that bad because this is a 2000-spec bike so I'm actually keeping all the years in line."

Tuners and riders must be able to communicate and work through all the nuances of setup as a team. Russell knocked over two seconds off his time Tuesday, hinting that the chemistry is there.
Ends