Tom Houseworth has accomplished just about everything he could during his many years as a mechanic and Crew Chief in AMA Pro road racing, but when Ben Spies, the rider he has won five AMA Championships with over the past six years, accepted a ride in the Superbike World Championship and asked him to come join him in Europe, Houseworth was left with a big decision. Should he continue in his well-established position with Yoshimura Suzuki in America, near his family, friends and growing side business, Houseworth Power Services, or should he follow his young, talented rider on this great adventure? “A lot of times you don’t follow a rider around,” said Houseworth. “Instead you stick with a team, but in this case I told Ben a hundred times I would help him with whatever he needed to do. So I’m going to go with Mr. Spies over to World Superbike.” While leaving the security of his job in America was a concern, Houseworth said his biggest consideration in accepting Spies’ offer was his wife’s reaction. “I had to make sure she was OK with this and happy with this,” he said, “because I’m not getting divorced over racing. She is very important to me. She’s fine with it. She’s happy.” The deal did run into a snag, however, when it turned out more was required of Houseworth than he originally thought. “I thought it was a fly-in deal,” said Houseworth. “(It turns out) I’m going to have to be over there a little bit, which isn’t a bad thing at all. It just wasn’t what I had in my head. Once we got all that straightened out, came to terms on some contract things it was OK. “Plus, the caliber of rider Ben is, you don’t get this chance too often. So I went for it so we can see what we can do.” Although he hadn’t officially signed his contract (Houseworth worked without a contract at Yoshimura Suzuki for six years) with Yamaha at the time, Houseworth went to Portugal to work with Spies during his first test at the Autodromo Algarve. Asked what he thought of Spies’ performance at the test, Houseworth said, “I thought it was really positive. He did what he normally does. It’s not a big surprise to me. I’ve been with that guy since the beginning, and he gets the job done. A few people were amazed, but to me it’s normal for him to get up to speed and go. We made a few setting changes and off he went. He adapted well. You could see on the MotoGP bike he wasn’t a slouch, and he’s not gonna be a slouch in this stuff.” Still, in his first two days on a new bike, new tires, new suspension and a challenging new racetrack Spies turned lap times good enough to have raced for the win in the final World Superbike races of the season. “The guy’s good, man,” Houseworth said, laughing. “Maybe I’m taking it for granted or something, I hope not, but this is the Ben I know. I know he was upset he wasn’t fastest. I don’t really pay attention to that, but I know he does. This guy is driven. He wants to win. He’s a winner. So that was normal to me. We didn’t go halfway around the world to mess around. He gets the job done.” As for his outlook on the 2009 Superbike World Superbike Championship, Houseworth said, “I know Yamaha [Motor Italia] is behind us 100%, so it shouldn’t be anything different than what we’ve already done. Like I said, just a different color bike and different people. We just got to get to know them as well as the people we left and continue on the course, just pick up right where we left off. Hopefully, we’ll win some races. This group of guys that Ben’s racing against, they are fast. There’s no way we’re going to be able to make any mistakes and still be able to finish second like we’re used to. This is definitely going to be a little tougher.”