Dream. Believe. Achieve. My Autobiography

We were invited to Rockingham Motor Speedway in Northamptonshire for a selection day to whittle those 20 down to five. There was only one problem: I’d never ridden a road bike in my life.

This was when Dad’s experience and contacts list came in handy. He made some calls, one to an old TT rival and former Grand Prix rider, Ron Haslam. A couple of weeks later, we were on our way to a race school Ron still runs at Donington Park, to ride a Honda CB500 naked road bike. I was wearing my dad’s old leathers about five sizes too big, boots a size too small and gloves which fitted. Thanks to Wendy Hearn, an old contact of Dad’s who worked for Arai, I also had a shiny new helmet. I’ve worn Arai ever since.

I’d never been to any kind of racing activity with a kitbag on an airplane before, it was always me and Dad out of the back of the van. But on this trip, me and Dad rocked up at East Midlands airport and stayed in the Holiday Inn Express there – it all felt quite professional. Ron and his wife Ann came to pick us up and take us to a briefing, because it was my first track session. Ron was a bit of a British racing legend and GP hero from the 1970s and 80s, so I felt very special being taken under his wing for some one-to-one coaching sessions.

Ron looked after me really well, and maybe there was a bit of special treatment through knowing my dad. After a few laps, he said, ‘You need to be a lot less rigid on the bike. Forget your upright motocross riding style. Move your inside bum cheek off the seat and lean into the corner with the bike.’ For ten years, I’d been kind of pushing the bike down into corners and almost pivoting from the middle of the seat, so I told him how alien it felt. But he was calm and reassuring and said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s normal for circuit rookies to be a bit scared at first of leaning your body so much into corners.’

In the middle of the day, Ron said, ‘Come on, I’ll give you an idea of what I mean.’ He got me on the pillion seat of one of the school’s Honda Fireblades and took me around for a few laps. He showed me what he meant about moving around on the bike and did a one-handed wheelie down the start-finish straight with me on the back.

I also remember the best piece of advice Dad gave me – which was to make sure to do all your braking in a straight line because, as you release the brake and lean the bike into the corner, the contact patch of the tyre changes. Even now, I still use a fine balance of different braking techniques, trying to get it right for each corner.

When you’re riding on tarmac, pretty much all your braking is done with the front brake, whereas in motocross you don’t use the front so much and, if anything, the rear is more dominant. The thrill of the higher speeds was just amazing.

At the end of the day, Ron told me he thought I had loads of potential and to keep working at it. ‘Hang off the bike more,’ he said, ‘and you’ll be fine at the Rockingham test day.’

I was anxious all the same; I realised I was getting desperate to be picked. This was a really big deal – the kind of opportunity that wasn’t going to come my way with motocross.

When we got to Rockingham, it was the worst possible day to have to ride for your future career. It was damp and drizzly and the track surface started out patchy. Tyre choice was an absolute nightmare – at least it would have been if we’d actually had a choice! We had borrowed an old 125 from another contact of Dad’s, Alan Patterson, a GP rider back in the early 1990s. We had a set of slicks on the bike and a set of wets for extreme rainy conditions, both of which were pretty old and ropey.

I think the organisers took it all into account and knew that not everything we brought was going to be perfect even though, like in our motocross days, everything was clean and tidy and well presented. They came and had some chats during the day about my racing experience, ambitions and targets. I answered as politely as possible and tried to sound knowledgeable. We didn’t really have much of a clue about the carburation, which is vitally important on a 125, or suspension, and whether that had been set up for me or, more specifically, my weight, so we just put the tyre warmers on the bike.

Of the 20 guys at the test, I was the only complete rookie – the others had done at least a season of road racing at club or British championship level. I went out on slicks but, because it was damp, I took it quite steady in the first session.

To my great surprise, I was passing loads of other riders.

My confidence was growing as I remembered my day with Ron Haslam and all the advice he’d given me. I was realising it was working, that hanging off the bike and leaning into the corners allowed you go round the corners faster. And, as anyone who rides a bike will know, the faster you can go round a corner, the bigger the buzz.

I was probably still quite stiff on the bike, but all the levers and pedals were in the same place as on a motocross bike so it was a question of adjusting my balance on the little 125, tucking in behind the screen on the straights and sticking my knee out in the corners instead of extending a leg.

The track was beginning to dry out and I was building speed lap by lap as the dry line got bigger and wider, cutting my lap times not just by tenths of a second but by seconds and seconds. I was passing other riders, amazing myself at how natural everything felt and how quickly I was able to get into a rhythm, moving around on the bike like Ron had told me, using the brakes like my dad had told me and everything felt like it was coming together.

When I pulled in at the end of that first session, Dad was quite excited and started firing questions at me about the bike, but I was much more interested in his opinion of my performance. ‘How do you think I did?’ I kept pestering him.

He was his normal self and said, ‘Don’t worry about that, just tell me what the bike’s doing. Is it OK on the brakes? Where can we make some improvements?’ He changed the suspension a little bit to give me a slightly better feel for the damp conditions and we altered the gearing slightly as well. Then I went out for the second session and, with those changes to the bike, I was even faster.

One goal I had set myself was to get my knee down, which I hadn’t been able to do at Donington because the bikes were so big and the footpegs so low. It’s something you never do in motocross, which needs a completely different riding style, and it was why this experience was so alien to me. I’d seen heroes like Kevin Schwantz do it on TV so often and I knew it’s a way riders gauge how far over the bike is leaning in a corner. It’s a subconscious thing now, but I remember it being so important then, a little indication I could be a short-circuit racer.

It was probably like watching an elephant riding a bicycle, me at 70kg and 1.72m trying to find my way around a 125. But I got my knee down, scraping my virgin sliders as proof, and I loved it! It was satisfying to hit that little target, but it also told me how hard I was pushing and how close I was getting to the probable limits of grip.

I was beginning to think I had a real chance of making the cut and being one of the final five who the Red Bull Rookies team would take to Spain for a test.

Then I crashed.

Maybe I was getting a little too confident, but racing is all about finding the edge of performance and sometimes you have to go beyond the limit to find where the limit is. I was putting more and more lean angle into corners, but as I accelerated out of one left-hander, still banked over quite far, I went through a big damp patch. I’d seen it on previous laps but, as you carry more corner speed you run wider on corner exits and this time I couldn’t avoid it. As my front tyre touched the edge of the damp patch it lost traction, the handlebars folded to the left and I fell off the inside of the bike. It was my first tarmac crash and I remember it lasted such a long time. When you crash a motocross bike, you just stop because you’re on mud or sand and a part of your body or a part of the bike just digs in and the crash is over, often quite painfully. In this crash at Rockingham I wasn’t hurt, but I just remember sliding. And sliding. And sliding.

I’d been a bit worried about crashing on tarmac, but I hadn’t fallen very far off the bike and my dad’s old leathers had done their job. When I eventually stopped I thought, ‘Ah, that wasn’t so bad!’ But when I went to pick up the bike, I realised that the left handlebar and footpeg were broken.

First, I felt guilty about damaging Alan’s bike, then I just felt stupid for crashing it in the first place. I managed to bump start the bike and ride it back to the pits, but it wasn’t in any state for me to continue.

I was just devastated. I’d completely blown this one opportunity I had to continue racing. My heart sank at the thought of being remembered by that selection committee as the raw motocross kid who crashed in the third session of a selection day. So we sadly packed everything back into the van, saying nothing apart from our thanks and goodbyes and we set off with a shattered dream for the long drive north to catch the ferry from Cairnryan.

I felt I’d been quite fast for someone who had only ever ridden one day on a road bike. My only consolation was I still had this vague offer from Joe Millar back home in Ireland, and me and my dad started to talk about calling him as soon as we were back.

As we drove along the A75 towards Stranraer, my phone rang. I saw a number I didn’t recognise. This voice said, ‘Is that Jonathan?’

I should have recognised the team boss, Robin Appleyard, by the Yorkshire accent, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I replied, ‘Yes, who’s this?’

He told me who he was and said, ‘I just wondered what you thought of today’s test at Rockingham.’ I figured he was just after a bit of feedback on the day, so I said, ‘Yeah, I thought it was well organised and I really enjoyed it until I crashed.’ Then I thanked him for the opportunity and thought that would be it.

He said crashing was all part of the learning process. ‘But I’m really pleased you enjoyed the day, Jonathan,’ he said. ‘Do you have a passport?’ I hesitated and said, ‘Er … yeah, I’ve got one at home.’ He said, ‘Well, that’s good because you’re going to need it in a couple of months. You’re in our final five and you’re coming to Spain for the final test.’

I just went through a complete 180-degree flip – from being devastated that the dream had been shattered to being absolutely elated that I was still in the game. Viva España – the little motocross kid from Northern Ireland, who’d never ridden a road bike, was in the Grand Final!

Before the test, scheduled for March, my dad and Alan Patterson agreed it would be a good idea to go to Cartagena, where the test was to be, to learn the track and spend a bit more time on that 125cc racing machine. So in February we set off for three days at the annual winter test for a lot of UK-based teams, organised by Barry Symmons, who had previously been Honda UK’s racing manager. It turned out to be a complete eye-opener as to what happens on boys’ trips away. Of course, as the saying has it, what goes on tour stays on tour, but there was a lot of stuff happening out there that you never see in Kilwaughter. I quickly learned that old Spanish hotels with flashing lights outside are not necessarily a disco or nightclub.

I felt I’d joined this exclusive club because all I’d known was schoolboy motocross. Now I was away in Spain, staying in a hotel, eating out, not having to power-wash bikes every day – and I was loving it!

I also got going really fast on the bike and was comparing well with a few guys there who had ridden at British championship level. Alan was great for me with all his two-stroke experience and taught me about setting up a gearbox and getting the carburation right on the bike. Instead of one day on a 500cc four stroke that I’d had before the Rockingham test, I had three and a half more days’ experience and felt a lot more comfortable on the bike.

I didn’t feel quite as good a month later, however, when I was on my own and away to the final Red Bull Rookies selection day, aged 16, without my parents or anyone familiar. Former GP rider Jeremy McWilliams, who was involved in the selection, had told Dad, ‘You just need to let him go and don’t be the schoolboy dad.’

I knew of the other four finalists – Ashley Beech, Daniel Cooper, Michael Robertson and Barry Burrell – who were all established riders, and of course there were team managers and mechanics who I was introduced to.

The bike I rode at the test was incredible. Not that Alan’s 125 hadn’t been good, but it was a bike he’d made for a customer. The Red Bull Hondas that Robin Appleyard had prepared were proper new high-end bikes. From what Alan had taught me, I was able to give some feedback on the first day and I was faster than all my rivals, as well as both Midge Smart and Guy Farbrother, the two existing riders in the team. In fact, they started coming to me to talk about set-up, asking me things like, ‘Do you think second gear needs to be a bit shorter for that corner?’

I was surprised that I felt pretty comfortable without Dad there. I’d spent a lot of my childhood around adults in racing paddocks so I got on very well with all the mechanics at the test. I was just being myself and I felt so at home in this new environment – tarmac instead of dirt or sand, garages instead of awnings and a crew of professional technicians instead of enthusiastic and supportive relatives and friends. But I still heard my parents’ voices in my head, telling me to be polite and respectful, so I made sure I thanked everyone for the opportunity. It felt like a big deal too; a TV crew was hovering around the track making a documentary. The whole test went incredibly well and I was thinking there was no way they couldn’t pick me, because my lap times were so much faster than the others. And that’s how it turned out – I remember phoning home and telling my dad, feeling so super-happy I could have cried. I was going to ride for the Red Bull Rookies Honda team in the British 125cc Championship.

It was a big thing. The championship provided support races for the British Superbike series, and the Red Bull Rookies Honda team was the one in the 125cc class that everyone wanted to ride for. The top Superbike riders like John Reynolds and Michael Rutter were household names. And there was me, getting ready to be a part of that giant circus.

In the first round, my first ever race on tarmac at Silverstone, I out-qualified both Midge and Guy in 12th and finished the race in the top 10.

If I ever thought Desertmartin was an impressive paddock, the number of motorhomes, 40ft trucks and hospitality units in the British Superbike paddock was incredible. I felt under a little bit of pressure, but there were never any expectations put on me by the team.

I was always going to be physically challenged on a 125. It wasn’t just my height, it was the fact that I was built like a motocrosser – quite tall, muscular and broad in the upper body – which you could say is not ideal for a tiny little race bike. In fact, I’m the same weight today as I was in that first Red Bull season, and the bike I ride now is just a tad more powerful.

After that first race my results were a bit more sporadic but, at the penultimate round in September at Brands Hatch, I woke up to a dry, sunny race day. I had only qualified 12th on the grid – the wrong end of the third row – but I was feeling confident and there was always a good crowd at Brands, which fired me up to battle through the field. It’s a really short lap on the Brands Indy circuit, around 50 seconds, but there were 24 laps and I managed to finish third, a couple of seconds down on Steven Neate and my team-mate Midge Smart, who won the race. Crossing the line for my first podium was the most amazing feeling, and I remember screaming into my helmet at the thought of spraying champagne in front of the Brands Hatch crowd, even though technically I was still too young to drink it.

I was still in my final year at Larne Grammar and had to find time for my GCSEs. When we were able, we travelled as a family and often used to get the Fleetwood-to-Larne boat back from a British championship round on a Sunday night; I remember one time early in the season my mum sitting me down in the boat cabin to get my coursework done before I went back to school the following morning.

Sometimes to save money on flights I stayed at Midge’s house in Peterborough between races. He turned out to be extremely helpful during that season. He was from New Zealand, only a year older, but seemed a bit more worldly-wise. I was a raw 16-year-old kid, staying away from home on my own for the first time, so everything felt new and fresh and exciting. We’d stay up late talking about bikes and girls and he became a good friend.

I got a great schooling in racing that year – the technical features of a racing motorcycle and the more subtle aspects of racecraft – learning things that have stood me in good stead throughout my career. Robin Appleyard taught me more in that one year of 125 GP British Championship racing than I’d have learned in five doing it on my own. Things like setting up gearboxes and changing gear ratios for different corners on a track. Because I was a bigger rider he taught me ways to improve my corner exits – the positioning of the bike on the track and the positioning of my body on the bike – to carry more speed on to the next straight. I also learned that the British championship paddock took racing very seriously, I guess because everything cost more and there was basically more money at stake.

Robin was super-good but I realised, because of my size, I didn’t have a realistic future in his team. I was desperate to carry on road racing, but some of the guys I was racing against were tiny – guys like Tommy Bridewell, who was so small he was like a baby. He certainly wasn’t the fastest round corners, but he would drill us on straights and put 20m on me because of his weight. So on a 125, I was pissing upstream a lot of the time.

Towards the end of that season I started speaking with Linda Pelham, the marketing manager of Red Bull who was running the Rookies programmes, about what options I had. She said, ‘Listen, don’t worry. I’m trying to work on something,’ but I had no idea what she had in mind. I started thinking about going back to motocross because, although I’d had a few decent results on the 125, they hadn’t been enough for any other team to offer me a ride. We couldn’t afford to buy a ride either, an option that had started to creep in at the time and which has become a reality of present-day opportunities. My dad had been right on his financial limit to do motocross, so that was going to be way out of reach. Tyres alone were so expensive.

The ideal next step was a ride in the Supersport class, which featured much bigger and more powerful 600cc four-stroke bikes. These were slightly tuned versions of models you could ride on the road, and formed a very important sales category for all the Japanese manufacturers. But I had absolutely no idea how I was going to convince any team to take on a motocross kid who had done a less-than-spectacular year on 125s.

CHAPTER 5

The Big Break

I really wanted to make the move up to Supersport, but it wasn’t going to be easy. I’d made good friends in my first year in the British championship paddock, among them Superstock rider Stephen Thompson and his partner Charlotte Pullen, who often took me to the races in their truck. They knew I wanted to make the move up and they put us in touch with a guy called Nick Morgan at MSS Kawasaki. But there was a problem: he wanted £35,000 for the season. Back then we couldn’t even think about coming up with that kind of money without help.

Talking things over with Red Bull’s Linda Pelham, I stressed that even though I was only 16, I needed to make the move to a 600cc bike because of my size.

‘I’m still working on some plans,’ she told me. ‘Don’t commit to anything without speaking to me first.’

Another avenue we explored was with the Northern Ireland-based TAS Suzuki squad, run by Hector Neill and his son, Philip, who I knew a little from motocross. But they weren’t remotely interested in me for the 2004 season; they were planning to hire Tom Sykes and Adrian Coates.

Then Linda came back to me. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I can’t promise anything, but I really want to take this Red Bull Rookie thing to the next level and I’ve had a good meeting with Honda Racing.’

Linda had convinced Neil Tuxworth, the Honda Racing manager, to give me a try-out for a potential new junior team to be run out of Honda’s HQ in Louth, Lincolnshire. It was to be a stepping stone from 125 racing to the Supersport class, with Honda providing the bikes, the team and the whole infrastructure. It was exactly what I needed.

Linda is tall and imposing and she probably intimidated Neil a bit – he was old-fashioned and not accustomed to women in the workplace. She has a light grasp of technical matters but knows what she wants, can be direct in conversations and she doesn’t suffer fools.

She had pleaded with him to at least give me a go, telling him he had nothing to lose. It was going to be another selection day and I was going to have to learn to ride another new bike and prove myself all over again. Only later did I find out Neil had virtually ruled me out before I even got there. He thought I wasn’t going to be fast enough, because I didn’t have enough experience after just a single season racing 125s.

The try-out was at Cadwell Park, five miles south of Louth, on another cold and damp end-of-season November day, just like the Red Bull selection the year before.

There were four of us competing for a Supersport ride on the expanded Red Bull Rookies Honda team: me, Kieran Clarke, Daniel Coutts and Cal Crutchlow. These guys had all been short-circuit racing for years. I had raced against Daniel before, as he’d been a regular podium finisher with the Padgetts team in the British 125 series. Kieran and Cal were a bit older and had both won 600cc races in the Yamaha R6 Cup, a one-make British Supersport feeder series.

At the track, Linda and her Red Bull colleague Ariane Frank may have been rooting for me to win the spot, but they were having to be very discreet about it. Although Red Bull were joining forces with Honda, the whole set-up was very much on Honda’s terms. And what a set-up it was. I’d thought our Red Bull Rookies’ 17-ton truck had been impressive, but this was another level. The amazing Honda Racing truck was crawling with technicians, and media interest in the day was being managed by a slick PR firm. There were interviews to see how marketable you were, which I think I handled pretty well. Those make-believe post-race interviews were starting to pay off.

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