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From an early age I have been in contact with racing
activity. My father raced hill
climb cars and became Belgium champion a few times. At
5 years old he offered me my first motorcycle. Around
15 years old I started motocross in amateur federation moving into the national
league after 3 years where things started to get really tough. At
the end of 1988 I decided to quit
racing and started to work as a mechanic in motocross GP. I
first worked with Eddy Seel (2002 European Supermotard; Champion) than in
1991,1992 with Marnicq Bervoets (still top class motocross GP rider). Late
in 1992 Kayaba, one of the leading Japanese suspension companies, offered me a
job as technician in road racing. This
is when I would say my road racing experience started. From
end of ’92 through ’99 I was in charge of most of Kayaba’s suspension
activity in road racing. I was also
involved in part of the European motocross activity (racing & research
development). As
Kayaba suspension was used by top class racing teams (Suzuki Lucky Strike, Tech
3, …) I was always in contact with top riders (K. Schwantz, A. Barros, D.
Beattie, S. Russell, O. Jacque, S. Nakano, …). For
the 2000 season I switched to the best road racing suspension company at this
time, ÖLHINS from Sweden. I
learned a lot working for Ölhins during the 2000 and 2001 seasons. The
human aspects and the work approach were quite different to KAYABA. During
2000,2001 I was responsible for the Red Bull Yamaha team and also assisted
Aprillia. This was the start of my
relationship with Red Bull Yamaha and Garry McCoy. As I
said before I have been fortunate to work with some top teams and riders. I
have met a lot of people and learned a lot from all of them. I
haven’t missed any GP since beginning of ’93 and I’ve been involved most
of the time in 125, 250 and 500 classes. For
the last 10 years I have worked almost every year with Hamish Jamieson (ex Mc
Coy race engineer). I came to
really appreciate his thoughts both technically and on racing in general.
Our experiences together taught me many valuable things which I will
continue to use in my new position within the team. To
conclude I would say that working for Redbull Yamaha and Garry Mc Coy as a race
engineer is a great opportunity for me. I
will try to use all I have learned in the past to bring Garry and the Red Bull
Yamaha WCM team to the top of the ladder. |
