The top privateer effort thus far in the 2003 Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship has come from the Melbourne based Brown Gouge Nova Honda Team.

Riders Brent George and Scott Charlton are currently equal sixth in the points and are looking to continue that form this weekend at Queensland Raceway.

While Brown Gouge and Shell are major sponsors, the chief effort behind the scenes is left to the crew at Melbourne’s Nova Honda.

Vince Genova is the main man at Nova Honda and with this exciting new team he has come back to the sport in a big way.

Vince was a panel beater by trade before venturing in to the motorcycle business over two decades ago. He also had a reasonable race career himself over the years in various disciplines of motorcycle sport.

First up he tried his hand at motocross where he raced as a ‘B’ grader for five years along with trying a bit of short-circuit and speedway racing.

But his biggest success came when he turned his talents to the three wheeled variety of motorcycle racing that is sidecar competition. Here he finished runner-up in the Australian Championship a couple of times and also wrapped up a sidecar win at the Indonesian Grand Prix in 1978.

After hanging up his leathers Vince sponsored a few riders in the eighties including the famous Trinder brothers. Other notable riders sponsored by Vince over the years include Fred Bayens, Michael O’Connor and Kevin Phelan.

A lot of his time was also dedicated to the running of his burgeoning business and bringing up a family. Vince, now 56, is married with four daughters.

With the demands of a large business and growing family the pleasures of racing had to take a back seat for some time, but Vince and Nova Honda are back in the ring and shaping up better than ever in 2003.

Late last year Vince was approached by Brown Gouge and invited to become the team manager. That invitation, along with a phone call from Honda Australia, was all it took to get Vince onboard to manage and run the new team.

The team’s CBR 954 Fireblades are prepared at Nova Honda’s workshop by a trained team of technicians.

Vince says the team has come a long way this year, “We started the year with fairly much the same package as Honda had been running last year in the 2002 Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship.

“We were not happy with that base setting but have made good progress with Ohlins Suspension coming onboard with plenty of technical assistance.

“An Ohlins representative comes to the track with us and helps us with set-up during a race weekend.

“Shell supplies the team with all our oil and fuel products and are always on hand to offer any technical assistance in those areas, that help is always invaluable.

“Michelin also help us out with a good deal on tyres and also some further technical information to add to our knowledge base.

“The early rounds this year have been a major learning process for our young riders (Scott Charlton & Brent George), this is the first time the pair have run slicks after many years on the production based tyres used in 250 Production and Supersport racing.

“Obviously this is quite a steep learning curve, as is the amount of power they have to play with on a Superbike.

“They are now learning how to use that power and that the key to a fast lap is not always to hit the rev-limiter, but to use the flexibility of the engine in order to record good times.

“Of course, we are happy with their performance thus far but now the boys have had some time to get accustomed to the big bikes, and the slick tyres, we expect them to do even better as the season progresses.

“It is a bit of a challenge getting all the behind the scenes organisational duties secure but we are getting a good handle on it now and our team of 12 people that travel to each round are really coming together as a cohesive effort.

“Of course we couldn’t have got this far without the help of Shell, Ohlins and Michelin and it is a credit to them that the Brown Gouge Nova Honda Team is the leading privateer effort in the Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship.”

The team will be in action this weekend at Queensland Raceway where they will contest the third round of the Shell Advance Australian Superbike Championship.