Motovudu riding coach (and 500 GP winner) Simon Crafar helped out a lot. He let me stay with his family and took me around Spain a little with his coaching. He said the biggest mistake young racers make is wanting to turn up to a foreign track on a foreign bike and beat the locals. So I bought two crashed road-going Yamaha R6s and a big van and set out to learn as many tracks as I could.
At the first coaching day in Spain this cute Norwegian girl named Renate came in for her pre-ride briefing with Simon. I offered her a coffee and she gave me a big smile – we hit it off like best mates who had known each other for years. She was impressively fast on her R6 and the fact that she was beautiful was a bonus.
Renate worked three weeks on and three weeks off. In her downtime we would travel around Europe, riding new tracks and going to the occasional MotoGP race.
I was living the dream!
After nine months in Europe my visa ran out. Renate asked me to stay with her in the north of Norway so I went home, got a work visa and set off to start my Scandinavian life.
We set up Team Arctic Circle Racing and have been working hard at getting results in the Scandinavian championships ever since. From September to March we put in hundreds of hours researching, developing and preparing our three Yamaha R6 bikes. We’ve pitched more than 100 custom sponsorship proposals and squeezed in some fitness when not at work or in the garage. By March, exhausted was an understatement for how we felt, but I’ve always said the championship is won before the start of Round 1.
Our final piece of preparation was an ambitious week of testing with Sundby Events in Spain.
Almeria was first up, a beautiful fast-flowing circuit out in the middle of the desert where they actually guarantee sunshine – they give your money back if it rains! Three days of sunshine followed, with very few bikes on track, no crashes and a ridiculous amount of laps including new PBs for both of us. We couldn’t have asked for more although, after a whole winter of no riding due to three metres of snow, our bodies were a little beaten up to say the least. We packed up and drove three hours to the next track, wondering if we’d been too optimistic trying to cram seven days of testing into eight days.
Cartagena was a little more stressful. It’s a tighter track with slower, more technical corners – more like the Scandinavian tracks. Throw in a few bumps and a whole bunch of other riders and it really is quite difficult to pass and get a clean lap.
Adding to the stress, eight of our rivals for this year’s championship were there too, so we needed solid times to start the mental games before the championship started. We made good steady progress. We’d been there before so day one was just full tanks and as many laps as we could fit in to remember the lines.
On day two we started changing things up and seeing if this translated to better lap times. We tried three different tyre brands, 10 different quickshifter and auto-blipper settings, countless suspension/geometry adjustments, and a few new products like the great West Sliders from Oz!
At the end of six days of riding we were absolutely exhausted. We contemplated skipping the final day, but being the racers we are decided to push on. We set out to show our competitors we were aiming for number one this season. We put in some fast laps that morning, but nothing too impressive, so by lunchtime we decided enough was enough.
Overall, apart from the mental and physical exhaustion, it was a brilliant test. Our bikes were running well and we had a great feeling of connection. Job done, we headed home to prepare for the Scandinavian championships.
