On Track Off Road No. 194

jump in. There is the freedom to change the
designs and expand the portfolio. I’m satis-
fied where I am at the moment, but I would
say I’m 30% short of where I want my total
budget to be. I’d really like to sit in the gate
at Hawkstone Park and the first race of the
year knowing I have the full budget to finish
2019 in the same strong way as we start. My
goal is not to be hoping and praying as the
season goes on that everything will be OK.
At the same time, we’ve done enough so I’m
not super-stressed about going racing. There
is a lot more work to be done and I’ll need a
little stroke of luck here-and-there to get the
final bits on board…but it won’t be for a lack
of trying. Sponsorship saps up a lot of time:
approaching companies, getting to the sec-
ond level but then being refused. You need
to know someone, who-knows-someone who
has a motorsport interest. That’s still probably
the biggest hurdle to get over, every-
thing else is dialled-in: engines, suspension,
bikes, parts, tyres, spares, myself, my gym
programme. In a way I am still running off
the fumes of Assen because you are only
as good as your last race. I’m not usually
one to feed off that ideal but it has dripped
into the winter. Another thing is that we’ve
pushed ahead with the ‘Simpson Army’ fan
club concept, which means that anyone can
get involved and almost ‘crowd fund’ us to
the level that they can or want. We put that
all out on the website and social media.
I’m not being naïve and thinking ‘I
can do this for forty grand…’
…I have set a realistic budget. I’m probably
doing it differently compared to other peo-
ple and have perhaps cut costs where other
people blow their money – and I’ve seen
it in teams before where I’ve thought ‘why
have we just spent five grand on that when
MAKING AN MXGP TEAM: SS24 KTM