“ Halfway through the year , he got injured and was out for the year . I was good friends with a man named Piero Slechten ( owner of SPESS exhausts ) and he gave me a job helping him develop the exhausts on the dyno . This is how I meet Jan de Groot ( the team manger of the factory Kawasaki motocross team ) and he offered me a mechanic ’ s job , working for American racer Tallon Vohland . “ I started with Kawasaki and was a mechanic for two years and then become chief mechanic and worked with Tallon , Stefan Everts , Fred Bolley , Yves Demaria , Sebastian Tortelli , Pit Beirer , Marnicq Bervoets , Michael Maschio and Steve Ramon . We actually won Kawasaki ’ s first world championship in motocross in 1995 , with Everts , and then two more with Tortelli and one with Maschio . In all the other years we had guys on the podium .
ROAD RACING AND MOTOGP “ My road racing career started in 2004 , I stared working as a crew chief for Peter Clifford ’ s WCM MotoGP team , with riders Chris Burns and James Ellison . It was a massive step coming from motocross to road racing without any experience , especially in that position , but Peter believed I could do it , and he gave me all the tools to learn and that was something I needed to do quickly . “ Finally Peter needed to close the team at the end of 2005 as he couldn ’ t find enough sponsorship to continue . At that stage , [ shock absorber company ] Ohlins approached me to come and work as a suspension technician . So , from 2006 until 2014 , I worked for them , first with the Aprilia group in the 125 and 250 classes and up to six different riders and teams [ too long a rider list to mention ] and then when Honda switched to Ohlins in MotoGP , I went there to
40 KIWI RIDER