Next Gen Motorsports team owner Wayne Hepburn has been one of the driving forces behind the BMW brand’s two-wheel success within the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK) ranks in the past seasons.

The accolades that Hepburn and lead rider Glenn Allerton have enjoyed prompted the outfit to enter the opening round of the World Superbike Championship (WSBK) at Phillip Island, where the team battled gallantly against the might of the world’s factory efforts which are bolstered by resources at an unmatchable level.

Allerton recently revealed the team’s plans to revisit Laguna Seca, where he entered a national AMA Superbike round, for the 27-29 September WSBK event.

We spoke to Hepburn about the project, including its primary considerations, the management of logistics and the goals that have been laid out.

The Next Gen Motorsports outfit is synonymous with success in Australia. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

Phillip Island was a solid introductory event for Next Gen Motorsports and the team would have learnt a lot from the experience. How much did you take away from that event and how are you applying it to this next venture?

It was very productive. It was very new to us but a few pitfalls did illustrate to us just how much ground we had to make up. We still can’t afford to get to that upper level, but we’ve got things like the kit gearbox now, bigger radiators like the world-level guys run, different clutches and probably a slightly higher-spec engine as far as horsepower goes. Our team took a lot from that and we’ve got more confidence to lean on the tune a lot more.

The bike that Glenn raced, because of the heat at Phillip Island and the lack of a bigger radiator, actually had overheating problems which meant we had to de-tune at the track to manage it. We didn’t actually race the spec we wanted to.

The gearbox is getting delivered this week, and we’ve taken possession of pretty much everything else. We’ve lightened the bike, and done everything we can to add maybe a minimum of 10 to 15 horsepower and probably drop eight to 10 kilograms. We noticed, especially in the slower corners, that we had a massive disadvantage and we’re doing everything we can to try to make that back up. It’s a big exercise and at the end of it all we’re still a privateer team – we don’t get funding for this from BMW here or in America or anywhere.

We’re doing what we can to give Glenn the best possible experience and chance. Glenn raced there last year in the AMA and learnt a lot from it. Not a lot of the World Superbikes have been there so he stands in good stead, especially early on.

Phillip Island is only just down the road from the team’s base, whereas Laguna Seca is on the other side of the world. There are obviously a lot of logistical factors to consider in the planning and preparation stages – can you identify any of the main considerations you have had to manage?

The biggest thing is really the timing between our championship here and what we’re doing over there. We race at Darwin two weeks before Laguna Seca, and obviously we can’t send our parts any earlier because we need them here. As soon as Darwin’s finished we’ll be taking things we can with us in our carry-on and getting them over there.

We’ve taken one of our spare bikes out of the system and that’s getting built into the World Superbike right now. That will be crated up and freighted within the next two weeks and Shane (Kinderis), our crew chief, will finish it off when he is over there with BMW helping out with their plans at Bonneville. He’ll then fly back here for the race.

Following the round Glenn has some promotional activities at Eastern Creek the week of Laguna, which isn’t ideal, but these are important commitments which we will meet. He’ll fly out Wednesday, and because of the time difference he’ll be arriving there on the same day. From there he’ll be straight out to the track and the event is underway.

If you take the dollar factor out of it then the timing is the biggest thing to manage. We’re not just jazzing up one of his bikes here and sending it over. We’re building a whole new bike and there’s a lot that goes into that. We don’t have a stream of full-time staff doing it, it’s just a small group of passionate people that love what they’re doing.

Glenn Allerton was competitive in his first World Superbike hitout at Phillip Island, a benchmark the team aims to build upon. Image: Andrew Gosling/TBG Sport.

The team has experience in World Superbikes, and has raced at Laguna Seca, albeit in the AMA series. With those two factors in mind, have you set yourselves a goal in terms of a result for this event?

We will, we haven’t as yet though. We’ve been wanting to go for a while but haven’t been able to commit until recently because we’d been trying to come up with the support. The first thing was to say we could do it, the next was to figure out how to make it work. Now that’s done I imagine we will sit down and come up with a goal, once we’ve gotten through testing early next week.

We had goals for Phillip Island – a top 10 – and probably fell a little short. But we were certainly happy with the weekend and how Glenn applied himself. I think a broad goal of a top 10 is easily achievable.

Glenn has often talked about his longer term goals which are to compete full-time in World Superbikes. Given the move of the series to try to cut costs, including the new ‘Evo’ class for 2014, do you think Next Gen could facilitate such a move in the future?

It’s something we’ve discussed for a couple of years. I’m passionate about motorsport and that’s what got us involved in it. The last thing we want to do is walk away from it in Australia. But look, if an opportunity came up for Glenn, even if it was with someone else, we’d support him wholeheartedly. That’s part of our job, to help the rider progress.

I have had conversations with people in World Superbikes about what’s involved and how to get involved. We’re not talking specifics or making plans with anyone in particular, moreso just having some conversations to get a better understanding. Obviously in our current form it is out of our league, we have spent a lot over the last five years in Australia getting to where we’re at and to try to stay there, and to go beyond that we’d have to have a different structure of support.