The Renegade Honda team have had a tough season so far - with a change of manufacturer and a new rider in Ben Bostrom - and the situation hasn't been helped by a lack of testing time.
However at Tuesday's British Superbike test at
Silverstone, Renegade took the bull by the horns and not only ran Bostrom, but added racing legend 'Rocket Ron' Haslam to their second bike, to assist with set up and gather more data.
"I'm just helping them and Ben out with some bike set up," former GP star Ron told
Crash.net. "It's a bit new to me, Silverstone - it's been a long while since I've moved from
Donington - I'm just helping a little with set up, give him a little more confidence and see where he goes from there."
It has been quite a while since Haslam senior - who runs a riding school at Donington Park raced - has raced, and he admitted to being slightly surprised at the pace on track.
"It's very fast!" he smiled. "I think I forgot just how fast it was out there, it has taken me a little bit to get myself into it as much as the bike. I need to get myself into it before I can help with the set up side of it. So just getting back into racing again, hopefully I've got another two sessions to get into it and try and improve the bike at the same time."
Haslam also revealed that he agree with Bostrom about the areas in which the his Fireblade needed improving. "I can see little bits of what Ben is talking about and now I've experienced it myself out there I can see a few little bits where we can improve," he said. "If we can improve the bike a little bit for him, his confidence will come up as well. Once a rider gets confident with a bike it makes a big difference."
However, Ron wouldn't be drawn in any precise details as to what they were working on, saying: "Just confidence for Ben on the bike, get it to do what he wants it to do, turn how he wants it to turn, put the power down how he wants it to put it down. More or less getting it so he is comfortable with it, once he gets comfortable with it he can do his job."
