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Chris Hay - 2003 British 125cc
Enduro Champion
Monthly Reports 2004 - No2.
Age:
21
Height:5'9
Weight:69 kilos
Home town: North Berwick, Near Edinburgh
Years Riding: 18
Years racing: 7
First bike: Honda QR 50
Current Bike: KTM
SX 125
Interests: riding, training, snowboarding,
mountain biking, cars and having
fun
Dislikes: Smoking, drugs, being injured and
people with attitude problems.
Ambition for the future: To be British Champ
and European Top 3
Results to date: 1995 2nd Scottish Motocross
Champ 100cc
1997 2nd Scottish Youth Championship 125cc
1997 1st In clubman class at my first Scottish enduro
1998 Scottish youth motocross champ 125cc class
2000 1st Expert in British champ Enduro Natterjack
2000 Expert Class Winner John Banks National Enduro
2001 9th in British Enduro championship class, 2nd 125
2001 6th Place in European Championship final, Hungary
2001 Silver medal in 6 Days Brieve, France
2002 5th Place at Breckland British Champ round 1
Championship class, 2nd 125
Sponsors: Bikesport, Fox, Rock Oil,
Bert Harkins Racing(Acerbis and Scott goggles), Pulse Racing products, DP brakes,
SportScotland
I have had an interest in bikes from a very young age, in fact its all I have ever
known. My father, Trevor a former Scottish Enduro Champion and British Team member in the
6 days, took me to enduro and motocross races from as young as I can remember. Also my
cousin, Richard is a multi time Scottish enduro champion and British champion.
I started riding at age 3 on a 50cc Honda just for fun then progressed at age 8 to a
80cc Honda XR, and always remember getting stuck in ruts cos the ground clearance was so
low, then at 13 getting a Kawasaki KX 100 when I had my first race.
I did my first enduro aged 16 at Innerleithen in the borders winning the clubman class at
my first attempt.
I competed in my first world championship round in 2001 in Slovakia, and also in Italy. I
also raced in 2 GNCC's in America and competed at the Daytona Supercross. I also gained a
silver medal at my 1st ever ISDE in France.
In 2002 I suffered a bad hand injury whilst competing in a world
championship round in France, where my hand was trapped in the back wheel effectively
burning my whole arm and back of my hand ending my season. At that point I was lying 5th
in Britain and 6th in Europe.
For 2003 I would like to be British 125 Champion, and top 5 in Europe. I am also planning
to compete in British Championship motocross! So any
potential sponsors willing to help out there would be great!
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Breckland - British Championship 2002 |
ISDE France 2001 - Silver |
Sponsors
Bikesport
Fox
Rock Oil
Bert Harkins Racing(Acerbis and
Scott goggles)
Pulse Racing products
DP brakes
SportScotland |
Results 2004 -
Monthly Reports
No2 June
2004
Hey another month gone and this one's been really busy. At the beginning of the month I
had planned a pretty hectic trip to British Championship Motocross at Devon and straight
from there onto Hungary for the 1st European Enduro Championship. On the run up to leaving
I had to get my Enduro bike and motocross bike ready so things were pretty hectic. After a
few nights and early mornings and many other hours in between things were finally ready.
So on to Torrington, I didn't ride well in qualifying and ended up out of the top 40, I
was very disappointed but its still good experience for the future. So on from there set
off for Dover to catch the ferry. After a day spent at tuners in Belgium I knew I had to
get some practice in before the weekend so we set off for North Belgium to try and find
somewhere to ride. I ended up parking up in the van just outside Lommel. Turned out this
was a good idea as Stefan Everts and almost the entire Motocross Grand Prix Circus turned
up there as well for practice. After a day riding in sand that is just so deep I felt
tired as did my practice bike.
So anyway on to Hungary, the event was good, a pretty simple course but if it rained it
would turn the place into a hard pack mud skating rink. I knew that I am capable of
putting in some really good results this year in Europe. Onto day 1, I felt I was riding
well but I had a small crash on the 1st motocross test which put me right down the order,
I was slowly clawing time back but the Junior class is just so competitive this year, so
on ending up 7th I was a little disappointed but knew I had to do better on day 2. As day
2 came round there was some rain overnight that dampened down the dust but conditions
seemed like they were almost perfect. However the rain came!!! agggh!!!! so the place was
transformed, but I put in good special test times inside the top 5 and even winning a test
that was later to be cancelled I knew I had a good chance of the top 3. On the final check
of the lap I managed to get myself stuck behind another rider on a very small off camber
into the trees, it took another 3 British riders that were also stuck there to drag my
bike up, I think there would have been more grip on Murrayfield ice rink!! but this meant
I lost 17 minutes and the chances of a good result were out the window. But that's
enduros. I was really disappointed.
After a lot of practice I felt my riding was really starting to come good again!! So onto
Poland!! The long drive out there meant leaving home on Monday morning so that we would
get there on Wednesday so we could sort the bikes out and test on the training track,
everything was looking really good, good long tests, one cross country test that was fast
in the woods then opened up into deep sand on the way to the finish, a cross test that was
tight and many tricky corners. On day 1, after torrential rain on Friday we were warned
about some mud holes, and it looked like it would cut up pretty bad. I felt kinda tight
with my riding I am sure this was due to the fact that I really wanted to do well, I ended
up 5th and top British rider on day. I was a little disappointed but knew I always go
better on Sunday's, the top 3 was not out the question. However on Sunday I started off
well and was lying 3rd after the 1st two tests, and had my sights on 2nd when 3 corners
from the finish I seat-bounced a hole then was thrown over the bars, I couldn't work out
what just happened, but after running back to the bike and starting it, it stalled twice,
there was a small stone jammed in the casing and that's what caused the crash, I lost well
over a minute in test dropping me way down the order to 14th, still some points though!!
So anyway back home and now gearing up for Italy European round and The Hafren the
following week so things are getting kinda busy, but my luck will change soon I am sure of
it.
Another blow was finding out that there is no Lottery funding this year for motorcycling,
so with a lot of races coming up I'll have to start digging deep into my pocket and budget
my racing. Only hoping that for next year we can get some funding again.
Chris
No1 May
2004
Hey everybody, as another season of racing is underway I thought instead of doing
reports race by race a monthly report would be a good thing to do so from now on every
month I will try to keep you up to date on what's been happening. For '04' I am riding KTM
125 again that I managed to win the British 125cc Championship on last year, with help
from Bikesport Newcastle and KTM UK.
So anyway onto this year, after many years of going out to Harry Everts Motocross School
in Spain in January I felt in need of a change of venue for this year was the way to go!!
So where else is there to go I hear you ask?? Well USA, Southern California to be exact!!
Talk about being exited!! It has always a dream of mine to go and ride in the States. So
with credit cards and travellers cheques in hand we set off for Los Angeles!! We were
hooked up with NCY(KTM dealer) and they helped us with a bike and everything to get out
riding. So with the bike now we had managed to get into our hire car with taking the front
wheel off, we set off for a months training. So 4 weeks in So. Cal was just awesome riding
with guys that are just so fast I couldn't help but improve.
So anyway after the 4 weeks of training it was time to come back to reality and Scotland,
where I had only 2 days at home to build a bike and head off to Southampton for The ACU
Junior training weekend with fellow Scot and Junior Squad member Ricky 'Bad Boy' Mair.
With the main focus of the weekend was practice for the Breckland (1st round of the
British Enduro Championship). With the Friday at Matchams with Rob Herring a good day of
practice on a wet rutted out track that I hadn't seen since for a while, proved to be a
good day and after getting my head back into riding ruts and wet ground I had a lot of
fun. For the Saturday we had a small area to practice in the trees but I didn't ride too
much due to having brake problems. The Sunday was going to be tough, we had Rob Sartin
(former British Champion) taking us physical training, I had done it before with Rob and
knew it was going to be tough, as it was but I have to say I did feel good after it.
After that is was home back to Scotland and Start getting things ready for the Breckland.
With only getting my race bike 7 days before the Brecland we were really struggling for
time. But however with only 40 mins of riding on the new beastie we set off on the road to
the race with my buddy and fellow KTM rider Chris Stewart. After walking the test I knew
that it was going to be a good race, I knew where I wanted to be at the end of the
weekend!
As the Saturday got going and the 1st test I was really eager to show what I could do,
maybe a little too eager!! Anyway I made a lot of mistakes and ended up through the tapes
heading for a tree! So however things didn't go very well, and were set to get worse, in
test 2 as I jumped out of the bombhole I lost my shifter and ended up stuck in 3rd gear
for the whole test. I knew from that point it was all about limiting the damage. So ended
on Saturday I ended up 6th overall and 2nd 125, which I was not happy about at all. So for
Sunday we made some changes to the bike and sorted out some small problems and it was
running much better. With downpours overnight the track was turned into wet slippy mud
instead of its usual sandy loam, I thought I have to get my finger out!! So I ended up 3rd
overall and 1st 125, on the podium for the 1st time in my career I was really happy. The
good thing from the weekend was knowing I could still go a lot faster as I didn't feel
that my riding was as good as it can be so I know for the next round in Wales I will be
working a hell of a lot harder to be closer to David and Paul!
So from British Enduro Championship, the following weekend was British Championship
Motocross at Canada Heights. This is a good way to get quicker and sharper. With the race
being a mudbath and the aspect of qualifying that I had never done before it was going to
be a learning curve. However after making misjudgements on qualifying I ended up 45th
which meant I didn't get in the race. However I did learn from it and knew I would be
better prepared for the next one.
With the 1st of the British Championships out the way I decided to ride round 1 of the
Scottish Championship organised by the Grampian Club at Lossiemouth. I was looking forward
to this race down to fact I heard good reviews from last year. With a lot of the course in
tight trees and sand it was really fun, but my favourite part was in the sand dunes, it
was bringing back memories of the 6 days in Brazil last November. Awesome fun!! I ended up
winning the event from Crawford Carrick-Anderson who I was riding with most of the day!
Was impressed with his riding and his speed in the tests! Good event and thanks to the
guys that helped out.
With a few weeks off and next event being British MX at Lyng I concentrated on MX
practice.
At Lyng I knew I was capable of qualifying and did so in 31st place! So I was in my 1st
British MX Championship race and was sitting on the line with the likes of Stephen Sword
and many other GP riders I was nervous, but however I crashed pretty hard in both races
and DNF'd but it was really good experience.
So anyway now getting ready for the 3rd round of British MX this weekend at Torrington in
Devon and heading straight from there to Hungary for the 1st European Enduro Championship
the following weekend, so better get back to getting things ready.
See you at the races.
Chris
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