Colin Davies

Race Engineer

Colin Davies was just 11 years old when he went to his first motorcycle race at Mallory Park in the UK to watch the likes of John Cooper and Giacomo Agostini. 

By the time he was 15 there was a direct family connection with racing and Davies was going to tracks to help out his racer Uncle at local British events. It was a weekend hobby that turned into a full time job.

"The best thing is that my hobby is still my job and I'm getting paid to do it," said Davies who has learnt all he knows about racing from working on the job with no formal mechanical training. 

After a stint working at British Championship level with the occasional forays into Europe for GPs, Davies made a full time move into grand prix racing with German privateer rider Martin Wimmer for the 1985, 250cc  World Championship.

In 1986 and 1987 Davies went with Wimmer to  Agostini Yamaha and a succession of factory team technical appointments followed working  with British rider Niall Mackenzie and Spain's Alex Criville.

In 1991 Davies was engaged by Suzuki and he stayed for six highly successful seasons as a technician with riders such as Didier de Radigues and Americans Kevin Schwantz and Scott Russell.  

After a couple of years away from the grind of GP racing including a year as development engineer with Team Roberts at their Banbury, UK base and winning the 2000 British 250 Championship with Callum Ramsey, Davies joined Red Bull Yamaha for the 2001 season. 

As race engineer for  Nori Haga in 2001, Yamaha's star convert from superbike racing, Davies was again at the forefront of race weekend strategy in the elite 500 GP championship. 

Most importantly for Davies, after more that two decades of involvement the passion for racing remains "The buzz and thrill of grand prix racing is a big attraction and I  still get nervous on race day," Davies said.  "There is always a challenge especially if  in practice  the bikes are not right you have to get the lap times down working with the rider and finding solutions, I find it fascinating."

For Davies winning performances by Schwantz and Wimmer are special memories in an outstanding technical career.

"Working with Kevin Schwantz during his world championship year in 1994 is an obvious highlight but also the first GP victory with Martin Wimmer in 1985 when he beat Freddie Spencer, who was riding the works Honda at Hockenheim, was a thrill, that  was quite an achievement on a privateer 250," Davies said.