RIDEFAST DECEMBER 2021

the breeze with you casually, but actually they are interviewing
you. Then they also look at your size and
determine what size bike would better suit you, and
then they decide who they want months in advance
before approaching you with an offer. Essentially
your entire racing career is one long interview in the
hope of getting a championship or two under your
belt.
Tell us a little bit about the life of a young SA racer
trying to make it on the international scene, is it all
glamour, rock stars, super models and the party life?
No! No not at all, I generally have to drive myself to
the races. Sometimes it 10 hours like from Valencia
to Jerez and sometimes it is 3,000km’s and 3 days
on the road, sleeping in petrol stations in the back of
my van and etc. I am usually over there for around
five months at a time, this year I have only been
home for less than a month the whole year. A lot of
the time it is very lonely, I have basic Spanish, but
the language barrier is a big problem. I can’t just go
next door and chill with the neighbour or go down
to a local coffee shop and find somebody to chat.
And living alone in a remote little town up in the
mountains in a foreign country with lousy network
single does become quite stressful, especially when
you have had a bad day or race and need to talk to
somebody about it. The hardest thing to adjust to
over there was the Siesta, for five hours every day,
Monday to Sunday the shops are closed from 12pm
to 5pm, no exceptions, Sundays nothing is opened
the whole day and some days I wouldn’t have
anything to eat and all the shops would be closed.
Five months I was alone, really alone except for race
meetings, which was really hard for me but also an
amazing experience because I got to learn so much
about myself and learn how to take care of myself.
But it was worth it for the training time I got. I got to
train at all the best tracks and even spent time with a
lot of the Moto GP riders and follow them around the
track and learn lines from them, braking points and
so on.
Besides your training on the track, what fitness
regimes did you try follow off track?
So, in the 300 class I would try anything to lose
weight. When I was racing 300’s I would eat one
egg a day and just run or skip as much as possible.
I would try do an hour of skipping and a 5 kay or an
hour of skipping and a 3 hour cycle… on one egg for
the day. It really is not healthy but I was desperate
to lose as much of my 20kg weight disadvantage by
trying to get my body to start eating at my muscles
because I only have 7% body fat so I needed to drop
muscle mass and I managed to drop down from
70kg’s to 65kg’s, but it was absolute torture. Now
that I am on 600’s I eat a bit healthier and just spend
as much time as I can in the saddle, riding fitness is
80% of your stamina. Like Rossi, he doesn’t do any
fitness training with his riders, they just ride, ride,
ride every day because once you build up that riding
stamina you don’t need to be able to run across
town. We actually practice controlling or slowing
our heart rate down, because we spend 30 to 40
minutes per race at between 150 and 180bpm, we
need to be able to control our heart rate so that we
don’t pass out or have a heart attack, being calm
and staying calm also helps with your race focus and
concentration.
What do you do to deal with the pressure of racing
and seeing other competitors crash?
32 RIDEFAST MAGAZINE DECEMBER 2021
I think it is just a mind-set, you have to basically not care and just see their crash
as another obstacle between you and your goal out of the way. I know it sounds
pretty callous, but if it isn’t one of my friends or the rider wasn’t badly injured or
passed away I don’t really think about it. Like when Dean Vinales crashed and
died, that happened right in front of me and I really did struggle to race the next,
that really was not lekker.
I went to see a sport psychologist in 2018, because I was still so young and
had a hard time dealing with the pressure, especially from SA, you feel a lot of
pressure from South Africa. Because there are so few of us and we know that
the whole of SA is pinning their hopes on you to make them proud and throwing
their cup of tea at the TV when you don’t, it does take its toll on you. But generally
I don’t think therapists help, talking to my Dad and Mom keeps mee grounded
and my head in the right place, my Dad gets me sorted, if I am stressing and
I phone him he gets my head straight. Like I mentioned earlier, without my family
I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this and I am eternally grateful to them for
everything that they have done for me in my life.
So, as I understand it your ride for iDENT in the last two rounds of Spains CEV
championship is really a feeder system to the world championships and if you
do well in these two races you will get a permanent full ride with iDENT for next
year which will also include 3 wild card rides in premier class events which could
nett you a solid career in one of the premier classes…
Well Dozzy, this has been a very interesting chat and it has been really great
meeting you and we really do wish you well with your new team and we do hope
to see you back in one of the premier classes in the very near future.
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