DHP Signs in Louth is responsible for functional and applied graphics that are seen by motorsport enthusiasts around the world…

Racing motorcycles really max-out the adrenaline pump and one of the venues where that’s best demonstrated is without doubt the Isle of Man. The Island presents those with the skills and ambition to race there with challenges not encountered on dedicated racetracks. The Island’s ‘track’ is, most of the time, public road. Public roads don’t typically make concessions like run-off areas or pass people’s front doors a matter of a few feet away.

Darren Havercroft owns and runs DHP Signs in Louth and, thanks to his accomplished work and expertise in the narrow specialisation of wrapping racing motorcycles, he works with the leading teams that make the Isle of Man the event the world knows and watches.

If you’ve watched recent competitions on the Island then you’ve seen Darren’s work. It graces bikes that wear the FHO team livery and Gas Monkey graphics and keeps company with the likes of Pete Hickman. Bikes and riders don’t come any faster and that helps makes provisioning graphics for racing machines one of the most demanding applications in the whole of motorsports.

Racing bikes comprise a very complex mix of panel detail and apertures for access, aerodynamics and function. Getting applied graphics to sit on such surfaces reliably is what makes demands of Darren’s undoubted skillset. Bike bodywork and components like the swing-arm take a real beating when racing. Road circuits produce an endless clatter of stones and debris which are capable of eroding graphics not to mention the wrapped panel itself.

FHO and Gas Monkey’s bike are better prepared than most to cope with the hostile racing environment. Darren provisions the graphics he applies on Metamark MD5 High Tack. Needless to say, it prints brilliantly and adheres reliably. Add to that a functional layer of Metamark Paint Protection Film which shrugs off battle rash and actually heals its own injuries, and the bikes don’t just look the part - they stay looking that way longer.

Darren’s process for dealing with the myriad complex panel parts require to wrap a bike involves the production of cutting templates by hand which are then digitised and painstakingly edited. The results that such attention to detail delivers is there for all to see. Darren sets himself high standards which is probably just as well - his work is, after all, seen around the world and in the fastest company anywhere.