After a turbulent year as the team manager for Carlton Dry Honda Racing in 2013, Chris Woods has had something of a homecoming as he returns to the Raceline Suzuki team for 2014.

MotoOnline.com.au caught up with the 32-year-old Newcastle native to find out the story behind the move, what’s in store for 2014, and the lessons he learnt during his year at the factory Honda team.

Image: Grant Reynolds.

Chris, for 2013 you moved from Raceline Suzuki to Melbourne as part of the Carlton Dry Honda Racing outfit. How would you describe 2013?

It was exciting to start with. I’ve been doing this for a long time and my goal always was to be a team manager on a factory team. My family and I relocated from Newcastle to Melbourne, but from there it went downhill. In fact, if I had to pick one word to describe 2013 in general, it was rotten!

The team experienced so much bad luck that started when Ben [Townley] got hurt and retired before the season started, then it was just one thing after another. We had six or seven guys on the roster this year, but due to injuries, bad luck and guys pulling out, it felt like we chased our tails all season.

As bad as it was, though, Josh Cachia was right in the hunt for the MX2 championship until he was injured, and we came close in the supercross too. Weston Peick was also really unlucky during supercross, but that summed up our year.

Behind the scenes the team pulled our engine program and our R&D back in-house to help save money, so I was busy helping the boys out there too. We were doing everything well and had a good set-up, but we just got hammered with bad luck. I put pressure on myself too, but no matter how hard we worked, it wouldn’t come together. It was killing me.

Now, while nothing official has been announced, we’re hearing you’ve returned to Raceline Suzuki for 2014?

Yeah, that’s correct. I’ve returned to Raceline as the race shop manager this year. I’ll also be running the team’s R&D program and helping out a rider at the races.

Basically my role will be to help anyone who wants me to build a race bike for them, and to put Raceline at the forefront of people’s minds. I’ll also help out Ben Lane, who will remain the team manager and will lend a hand where he needs it.

As a result of the changes we’ll move the team from Toowoomba back to Newcastle, where it’s more central to everything. Benny lives in Toowoomba, but will float between there, Newcastle, and the rider he’s working with.

I guess you would’ve learnt a lot working at Honda. Are you bringing any ideas or systems that you learnt there back to Raceline?

It’s funny, because being at Honda made me realise just how good a little team like Raceline operates. I learnt a lot about making budgets and sticking to them, managing cash flow, and planning ahead. I also learnt a lot about dealing with people with big personalities.

There was a lot that went on behind the scenes that I’m not going to elaborate on, but holy-dooly, for us to get to the races and be competitive with the curveballs and budget complications that got thrown at us was pretty incredible.

Earlier you mentioned a couple of riders in fairly general terms so far. Can you confirm the team roster at all?

I’ll be looking after Hayden Mellross and he’ll be the poster-boy for the Raceline shop in the MX1 class. All our stuff will go with the Raceline truck to the races, then we’ll set up next to the team.

Because Raceline Suzuki is a Lites team, it would be a clash to have Hayden’s 450 under the same roof. The best way to describe it would to say we’re closely aligned to the Raceline team, but will run our own program.

At this stage, Raceline has definitely re-signed Geran Stapleton and Ryan Marmont is all but definitely returning as well. It’s looking likely that the team will remain with the same riders as it had last year, which is great.

Image: Grant Reynolds.

There has been some speculation that Lawson Bopping might also return as a Suzuki rider this year, especially as he’s racing the RM-Z in the USA at the moment.

I’ve heard that rumour too! [laughs] If I had some extra funding I’d love to help him out, but there’s not much we can do if we don’t have the time, money and resources. It sucks to see a rider of his quality not have a ride as yet, but at the same time it sounds like he’s starting to pick up a little bit of support in the US, so hopefully he can make a good fist of it over there in the meantime.

What was it like walking back through the Raceline doors after a year away?

Oh man, it was fantastic. The team is just full of very good people. They don’t baby you, they point you in the right direction, give you all the tools and tell you to go and do your work. I love it. It’s a great little team and I couldn’t be happier than what I am right now.

What are you goals for the 2014 race season?

I think that if Hayden can walk away from the MX Nationals with a top six finish in MX1, that’d be mission accomplished. He’s a big kid, he’s committed and has a lot of talent, but I think he needs to find a little bit of extra raw speed.

I also want to help Suzuki gain more presence in the juniors and will look for a couple of kids to help with parts and suspension. From there it’d be great to look after them through the MXD class, then our Lites team, then send them next door to the MX1 team, similar to the solid program that Yamaha runs with its GYTR, Serco and CDR teams.

Fantastic, thanks for that, mate. Good luck with the new gig and we’ll see you in nine weeks’ time at Broadford.

Sounds good. Thanks for the chat!