JOSH BROOKES
wants that result, it’s just whether
or not it all works out for you.
If you do manage to secure that
number one plate at the end of
the season would you then look
to getting yourself on the World
Superbike market? Where does
the future lie for Josh Brookes?
As I said earlier I never wanted
to come to BSB, it wasn’t part of
my plan. I was a kid at primary
school getting yelled at by my
mother to go to bed and I’m sat
there watching Grand Prix’s.
There was Nobby Ueda and all
these guys racing GP 125s and
I was watching these Grand
Prix’s thinking; ‘that’s what I’m
going to do, I’m going to ride
125, 250 and 500’ and you know
all those dreams have gone. I
still have the desire to be at the
top of motorcycle racing, so the
stepping stones are WSBK and
then MotoGP.
£ Josh flying round the Isle
of Mann TT course 2014
from Brands [Hatch] where it
was good, but by then it was too
late. I feel like this year I’m riding
the same as I did on the Suzuki,
but I’m getting wins as opposed
to just getting on the podium. I
feel like I’ve already made a step
forward and that confidence is
only going to help me when it
comes down to the end of the
year. The fact that Shakey has
such a strong competitor is only
going to hinder him, so you know
the tides will turn, maybe enough
that I can get the results that I
want. I think everyone on the grid
I think that I could be fifty years
old and still have that dream and
desire to be in MotoGP. It doesn’t
matter what age you are or what
championship you are in, I think
you will always have that desire
to be there. I often think that if for
some weird reason I was out of a
ride, what would I do? I’d like to
go to Japan and live there for a
year to be a Grand Prix test rider just for the opportunity to ride the
factory bikes.
Some people love a certain race,
bike, or rider and they might
follow that rider throughout their
whole life. Where I’ve never really
cared that much about other
riders, championships, or races,
I’ve always been fascinated
by the bikes. I want to ride the
best, most exclusive and exotic
motorcycles out there - that’s
always been my desire. When I
bought a Motocourse book at
the end of the GP year I would
look through it and hardly read
anything about the races - I
was always just trying to learn
something from looking at the
pictures. I loved looking at the
bikes with the fairings all pulled
off, the dry clutch, the polished
frames and the titanium exhausts
- this was what made me so
interested in Grand Prix.
It’s funny - that was another
question I had. You seem quite
mechanical. You build your own
hybrid 500cc 2 stroke MX bikes,
and when you’re back home in
Australia you are tuning up your
vans etc. Not many riders are
so hands-on these days, there
is almost a sheep-like mentality
where everyone tries to do what
the top rider is doing, but you
are quite different, you beat
your own path…
Yeah I think that came from a
young age because my dad was
never really that good on the
tools. I mean he knew how to put
a piston and ring in to make the
bike go, but he never knew how
to tune the bike to make it better.
So from a young age I kind of
thought; “if I’m going to get what
I want from my bike I am going
to have to learn to do it myself”,
so I used to spend time cleaning
it and trying to make it better. I
would try to learn from anyone I
could to figure out how to make
my bikes better. I’m talking about
just dirt bikes as a kid here seven or eight years old, so that
has sort of stuck with me since
then.
When I started riding 125s if
the engine seized, I wanted to
know why it seized. I didn’t just
go; “oh the jetting was wrong”, I
wanted to know why the jetting
was wrong, “what needle should
I have had i