Between the Races: Tom Houseworth

We last  interviewed Tom Houseworth before the World Superbike season was about to start. After spending some much-needed time at home with his family, Yamaha WSB crew chief to Ben Spies Tom Houseworth is preparing to head back to Europe to focus on getting his rider back in the World Superbike title hunt. We recently caught up with him on the phone at his family’s property in New Mexico.

RRX: So, have you been staying with Ben on Como the whole time you were  overseas?
Tom Houseworth: Yeah, I’ve got the same amount of hours in that place as he does—maybe more!

That’s because he’s always out training.
Yeah, he’s out riding that damn bicycle—that evil thing with two non-motorized wheels on it.

How’s life over there?
It’s kind of hectic. It’s weird; it’s pretty fast-paced like California, so I kind of fit right in. The driving isn’t so bad. They’ll be three abreast into a roundabout—I’m game for that. We’re going 30 or 40 K, and that’s not really fast by U.S. standards. But it’s good; I’ve been having a ball. I’ve been driving around in a Smart car, so that’s kind of a laugh…. It handles like a go-kart, it accelerates and stops like a go-kart. It’s really not bad. It’s like driving a go-kart to work every day.

How’s your commute?
If you can do it in the morning when there’s no traffic and the lights are all set on caution, I think my record’s 41 minutes. With it raining one day, it took an hour and a half. It can be anywhere in between there.

So like L.A.
Exactly! I’ve got it down now. I don’t need the GPS anymore, so that’s when I realized, Oh, no, I’m getting to know this place. With the exception of missing my wife, when you’re over there and you’re coming home from work, it’s like you’re going home! It’s like, Hey, we’re going home! It’s like you live there. The only real difference is when you go to a gas station, I have a rough time. I can talk a little now, but the roughest thing’s the language deal, and that goes for the team too. It’s nice over there though. The food is freaking awesome!

What do you do at the house?
I clean it [laughs]. I do a lot of cleaning. I’m the pool boy. I do my small amount of crap that I do, but I’m old and I’ve been through what he’s done—not quite at his level because it’s different now, but I did all that. Now, things hurt, parts hurt. My knee exploded over there and swelled up and I had to have it drained. At the house, I just piddle around, serve dinner and that, make sure the place is at least sort of tidy. We all pitch in with that. If there’s dishes, I’ll do the dishes, make sure the pool chemicals are right, blah, blah.

Do you have a social life?
No, you kind of work and come home, hang out at the Como place, or I’ll go drive into Switzerland. Ben will go around the lake or some crazy ride into Switzerland. He goes with all these pro guys, and they’ll be gone all day, so I’ll jump in the car and go drive into Switzerland or something. I stay busy, but I’m not going to kill myself on one of those bicycles. It was twenty-five years ago when I was doing that stuff, and everything is so much better.

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