RACING
Bradley Smith talks about time off, how he copes with injury and racing in the TT…
Bradley Smith guest edits and reveals what racers do on their holidays.
IT’S DIFFICULT TO find a balance between having a break and staying sharp. In December I had a month off motorcycles – no motocross, supermoto or trials. I even had a week where I didn’t do any training at all, and had lay-ins – it sounds so basic but normally I’m always being woken up because I’m on a schedule. I had time to catch up with people I hadn’t seen for a bit too. There’s a lot of F1 drivers and World Endurance drivers around where I live [that’ll be Monaco – Ed] who I never usually see because of the way the championship dates work, so it’s good to go out on the bicycles together. It’s people like Brendan Hartley (current Toro Rosso F1 driver), Allan Mcnish (ex F1-driver) and Mark Webber (ex-f1 driver) and it’s more of a social thing than any kind of real training. I’m a tech nerd so it’s interesting to hear about the extra things that F1 are doing that we often don’t think about in Motogp – for example, they were telling me that the engine tolerances in F1 are now so tight that the mechanics have to heat up the water and oil before they put them in to cut down wear. They don’t start the engine to warm it up, they warm up the fluids then start the car. But you can’t have too long off cycling and chatting. I have to get back into the routine because Malaysia is such a demanding test [Jan 28-30]. It’s three days in 30°C and 80% humidity and you have to be ready for that. KTM are bringing out another new bike for next year so we have to be in great shape to be able to do the laps. You can’t just do 30-40 laps – you need to be able to push for 70 laps a day. That’s the only way the team will get through all of their testing program. So I have to get back into the training.
‘You need to be able to push for 70 laps a day. That’s the only way the team will get through’