OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
JAMES TOSELAND - 16 RACE WINS World Champion 2004 and 2007 - Ducati and Honda Two World Championships , and unusually on two different brands of machinery , James Toseland has more than most retired racers to celebrate . An unusual sort of teak tough racer in many ways , from his truly impressive musical abilities to his almost gentle nature and wide-eyed openness . After his second WorldSBK win JT took the brave move to join MotoGP™ but a serious wrist and hand injury blunted , and then cut short , what could have been a much longer career after he went back to WorldSBK . “ I remember it being a difficult time ,” says Toseland , who despite achieving so much in his life on and off track is still wistful about that period . “ It cut me ten years short , really . I was only just 30 , and World Champions Biaggi and Bayliss were 40 . I realised that my wrist was not going to bend any more , and I had to find out who I was really , without being a racer . That was tricky because if that is all you have known since you have been a kid … you have to find out who James is . Who you are , personally . And the only other thing I knew how to do other than race bikes was play the piano and music . I kind of threw myself into music , started writing songs and got a band together , did two albums , I thew myself into that because that was the only other James that I knew of that gave me any kind of fulfilment , reason to wake up in the morning . I was so busy because I was so young then and determined to achieve things in life .” Some dark days in amongst the light , clearly . The personal self-satisfaction of a career started early by the standards of the time , but finished artificially early . Worth Toseland himself and everyone remembering that he won not one but two big World Championships , and on different bikes . The Honda year was particularly impressive as it was almost a de-factory independent Hannspree Ten Kate Honda team . But still James cannot help thinking what could have been , and he thinks it may be even worse fo the next generation . “ It is so tough for sports people , especially for this new generation , because I was the last generation that could pick something up at 16 or 18 and have a go at being a world champion at it ,” said James . “ You have no chance of it now . They are all five and six starting so it is literally all they have known . But when you are 35 and it all comes to a close , you realise just how little life you have lived at that point in time and there is a long way to go . What do you do next ? If you have not had much reward for your efforts - there are not many that can retire from sport and not worry about it - it is a difficult task to get the skillset again to get some money coming in .” James , simply because he was asked , returned to the WorldSBK paddock to manage the Wepol Yamaha WorldSSP team for one season last year , and help look after their rider and his compatriot , Danny Webb . Toseland has been married and divorced since his retirement , happily remaining friends with his ex in the process , has started a property business up with his brother and James has a couple of his own properties that he rents out . “ Property is a passion of mine ,” explained Toseland , “ but it is the music that is still the driver .” Even that has been compromised by his wrist injury , and the numerous medical interventions to get it working anything like normal again . “ What I have been doing for ten years is trying to get back what I lost with the wrist ,” said Toseland . “ I have had six operations on it in the last ten years . To have the operations and keep recovering each time , it has been a real challenge . Painkillers and the pain and discomfort of operations , recovering from them . Then only recently I made the difficult decision to have it fully fused . Always a last resort to fuse a joint but the pain and discomfort and all the rest of it … it wasn ’ t enough to live life like that . I am only seven weeks post-op and half way through the wrist healing to actually fuse itself . It does not move at all now but when this is healed fully in July I am hoping to able to sit behind a piano again and play without severe pain . I have not been able to brush my teeth with my right hand for three years … Really , mentally that has been the biggest thing . Trying to get to a happy place with the wrist really , which has been tough . And I want to start a family at some point .” With his wrist hopefully on the road to a pain-free future , enough new songs written already for a new album , and even talk of another team management possibility in 2022 , Toseland has every reason to look forward to achieving more goals over the next ten years .
EXCITING CONTENT
29