They were just not interested. And then I
literally just bought the bike. With a bunch
of money.
That’s a familiar story man. Even for
racing at the moment, there seems to
be so few bikes about - even loaners or
anything like that.
Yeah, you know but the thing is that
Yamaha does back people. If you’re an
enduro rider, if you can change gears from
first to firth and go flat out down the road,
in South Africa, they love it.
Is that a reflection of the South African
FMX scene? I think last we spoke there
were a couple of riders but not much
happening. Is that still the case?
Absolutely. You know the guys, they get
comfortable. They don’t have to progress.
They’re the rock stars.
They don’t have to progress, do much.
And they certainly don’t want to take the
risks. But there is another guy, another
young rider that’s just up and coming from
the coast that I want to work together with
called Jason Hannon. He’s actually just
landed a flip now. But he’s also very young
and just has to understand there’s a lot of
things for him to work on.
I saw you pop up at the Indonesian
MXGP actually, how did that come
about?
I got a call saying they’ve got a Suzuki and
they need someone to ride it for the next
display at the GP.
How well do the racers get on with
FMXers?
It was funny as hell man. I’m walking
around the pits. I used to race for years
and years in South Africa and there’s this
level of, it almost looks like arrogance. You
know what I mean? Like man, they just
don’t smile. None of the racers smile.
There was a lot of rain but we did get to
ride. The rain stopped just for that period
and we got it done. Then the rain came
down and it was a bit of a mess again.
I saw it on TV, the racing looked pretty
mad…
That’s MXGP! It’s a gruelling, hard-core...
That’s exactly what it was, you know. But
it was super. Really cool man. I can’t say
enough good about the place. Really made
me happy because the people are so
friendly there. That’s what really took me
aback. You know? t
How was the riding? Did you get a
chance to cheer them up?