FITNESS
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From a very young age I was fortunate enough to be taken all around England and the whole of Europe to watch my father Derek race. This meant that I got the general idea about motorcycle racing and I saw how things developed over the years.
At first I was not interested at all in racing motorbikes up until the age of 11 when I spent 2 hours riding an old dirt bike and learnt how to ride a manual bike. I wanted to race as soon as possible and the first opportunity that came was the next weekend. My father purchased an Aprilia SP125 from JHPerformance (John Hackett).
I had decided that I wanted to race in the UK Junior Challenge. Every round of this championship was held at Darley Moore. My first race meeting was one week after buying my new bike. I managed to finish first in race one and second in race two which I was really pleased with! |
During my first year of road racing things seemed to get better all season. I won the UK Junior Challenge championship by 98 points. My results for the season were 9 wins, 6 second places and 3 third place finishes. All in all it was a great first season.
After successfully winning the UK Junior Challenge I set my targets high for my first season in the Aprilia 125 Challenge. The 125s were a support race at every British Superbike round which meant that I would be racing at all the circuits throughout Britain.
I leased an Aprilia RS 125 from Kickstart Motorcycles of Port Talbot.
I was a bit tense going into the season because I knew that I was up against some tough competition, and I was lacking in track time at these circuits.
I was pleased with my performance at the first round as I finished 12th position. I then settled down to some good top five finishes at the following few rounds, and I began to feel confident running with Casey Stoner; Chaz Davies and Robert Butterworth who were usually the top three riders. |
