About Me
I was born Oct 6th 1971, in a military hospital in Aldershot England, and traveled the world during my childhood with my Father, as he was in the British Army. My father retired from the British Forces, and lived in the Derby England. My career took off at the age of 16, and began my journey in the High tech industry as an Engineer. During 2003, i was asked by a good friend of mine and my new Boss Pete Klessel to transfer to the USA and locate to the Pacific North West, of which i gladly accepted.
Turning to my racing career, i started riding motorbikes in 2006, and my first bike purchase was a 2005 Kawasaki ZX6R, which i rode on the road for a year. i then got the itch to ride on a track, and took 2 levels of Keith Code school, and then soon found myself converting my ZX6R into a track bike, and began riding track days at Portland International Raceway, and purchasing a ZX10R for the street.
The 2009 Season
At the end of 2008, Chris Vandervoort of Cycletune, and i signed a sponsorship deal for the 2009 season, since then Chris has become a very loyal friend. Chris has a very credible history in racing, he spent many years it the Honda Racing Team (AMA) working with Miguel Duhamel (who also races No.17). Starting soon in January 2009, Chris began working on setting up the ZX6R to be a true race bike, changing out the exhaust and suspension, to name a few parts, ready for testing at Thunderhill in February with my new team Mate Roy Rogers. Roy is a very experienced rider, he brings many years experience to the Cycletune team, from his many years of racing.
The year then got off to a bad start for me, missing 4 races, as i missed a race class that was needed for my novice race license, and subsequently missed 4 races at the beginning of the season. onto the 5th round i had received my novice license and was now on the grid racing with fellow novices, and my lap times began to drop gradually, and within 3 race weekends graduated to expert, for the final race of the season, which was perfect preparation ready for the 2010 season. My laptimes had dropped dramatically at Portland International raceway to 1:12's and well on my way to improve for 2010
Shifting the Focus to 2010
the 2010 is a very promising year, we are in Nov 2009 and looking to already purchase a new bike, it will be a Kawasaki ZX6R or course!! And Chris Vandervoort will be looking to race prepare this one, only better than the old bike we used last year, that is now a 2005 and i will use that to race the 600 Superbike "senior" class, as my team mate says "it's not the rider it's the bike."
I plan to race up and down the West Coast of America, and maybe over to Miller as well. my goal is to Apply for 3 club licenses, being OMRRA (Oregon, my home track), WMRRA (Washington), AFM California. There is news that the AMA Supersport will not be limited to 16-21 year olds in 2010, it will allow expert riders from club level to fill the grid, i have my fingers crossed this is the case, which allow my team mate and i to race at Fontana and Infineon in th AMA rounds, on TV!!!!!
Padden, a fantastic instructor at the Keith Code Superbike school. This photo was taken during de-breifing after an on the track lesson.
negotiating Turn 9 at PIR (Pacific International Raceway), onto the 0.9 mile straight.