Motocross Illustrated

will be treated like an absolute king.” After
some to-and-froing, the signature appeared
on the KTM contract and the rest, as the
saying goes, is history.
A few months down the line, the phone jingled.
Would I like to see the new KTM rider
in a race? Would I ever!. The race was in
Donnery, France. It is an obscure little race
with no championship value whatsoever
and a good six hours drive away, but it just
so happened that I had to get some milk
that you can only find in the supermarket
in that very village, so all worked out well.
The race at Donnery is, as mentioned, not
a championship race of any kind, nor is it
particularly well attended spectator-wise,
but for some reason the whole of France
and his/her poodle takes notice of what
happens there.
More significant than the race on that occasion,
though, was the introduction that was
about to me made. Trotting through the
pits, I was introduced to a racer that looked
as if he was hewn from a solid slab of
granite. Kurt Nicoll, no longer a spring
chicken, could still heave a bike’s throttle
with authority, and this, coupled to his undeniable
experience and racing pedigree,
earned him a spot as KTM’s main development
rider for their then experimental fourstroke
open class bike. The conversation
went swimmingly, and a link was forged
that would serve us all well in the years to
come.
A few years hence, Langston was in possession
of a world title and we were again
finding our way up the ladder with promising
South African youngsters, particularly
so Tyla Rattray. Most of the racing efforts
were still self-funded, and money flew
out of the wallet like a flight of swallows
on migration. A few weeks into the year,
whatever famous figures were depicted on
the bank notes had learned more tenacity,
and were clinging to the inside of wallet like
leeches, and one was only able to dislodge
them with liberal use of a crowbar aided by
dollops of WD40.
Our technical staff, headed up by Tyla’s
stepfather Wayne Lumgair, always had the
team’s interests at heart, budget and all.
When a bee entered the managerial bonnet
to enter for an international French race,
therefore, there was much wise counsel
against it. “It doesn’t count for anything, it
will cost too much and we are still busy tuning
and preparing the bikes for the season,”
was the gist of the argument. “But, but,
but racing is the best preparation, and we
need to see where we stand. Moreover,
Kurt Nicoll will be there racing, and if we
impress him, who knows what might be the
outcome,” was the managerial retort. Nicoll
had by then been bumped upwards in the