My kids are starting
Rea talks about sacrifices he and his family suffer to make him the world’s best
HE gently wipes away the tear slowly rolling down the cheek of his three-year-old son, who is starting to realise what it means when daddy goes to work.
As he made another heartwrenching goodbye before flying to Argentina for the penultimate round of the season, then straight on to Qatar for its conclusion, fourtime World Superbike champion Jonathan Rea was hoping his two boys, five-year-old Jake and Tyler, three, would not see him thrown across the Tarmac at 160mph.
He was hoping they would not see him break another collarbone, another rib, break his femur for the third time, break another ankle, metatarsal, damage knee ligaments or need another wrist or knee reconstruction.
Yet as much of a family man as Rea is, striving to maintain that strong dynamic while jetting 80,000 miles across the globe in a 26-race campaign, emotion is cut off cold when the visor snaps shut.
“I had a bit of a tearful goodbye with the youngest before I left for Argentina because he is starting to really get it now,” says Rea. “The boys are my biggest supporters, but it’s really tough on my wife.
“And it’s a very tough one to balance. Any risk you take in races or pushing beyond the limit, it’s always calculated but it’s a real tough one for me because, when I put my helmet on, I become a different person. There is not one millisecond I spend thinking about family or