Archive for December, 2010

Ed: Hi Warren, and thanks for your time at this late stage in preparations. Can I get a quick run down on who Warren Strange is?

WS: I’m 45, I’ve been married 26 years and I have two boys – 21 and 18. I raced bikes from the age of 9 and haven’t ever really stopped – I’ve always been doing one form or another, but over the last 10 years I have focussed on desert racing. My first riding was done on an ATV70 three wheeler that I wrecked when I ran into the our small town’s school teacher’s car at the end of our driveway. I went on to race a Honda XR75, then a YZ80, then an RM100 and onwards from there. My time is split between Perth and Kalgoorlie. I’m a public company director. My company, Globe Drill, specialises in geothermal drilling for the energy market. I’ve designed, built drill rigs for the past 15 years and operated drill rigs for 15 years before that. Over the past two years I have designed and built a rig that will drill to a depth beyond 4,000m so it’s been keeping me extremely busy. The business was based in Kalgoorlie, but is moving down to Perth progressively.

Ed: You’re family must be very supportive of what you do. Do your boys ride?

WS: They do, but not competitively. My youngest son raced a season in America on the East Coast when he was 15, and my eldest son Brad has done the Gascoigne dash and a couple of off road events. They’ve had a go but they are both focussed on working hard at university right now. My family have been great. My wife has been very supportive. She’s been with me at most events since I was 17 years old, so bike racing has been a part of her life as well as mine and our boys’. Brad is coming along as one of the support crew. I’m also bringing along another chap named Glenn Brown who is a former member of the SAS, so with him and my son I’ll have support with me all the way.

Ed: How have you been preparing for Dakar?

WS: Well, with my very involved business life I don’t get a lot of time to do training so my preparation has just been focussed on myself and my gear. I haven’t done as much ‘riding’ training as I would have liked, but I wasn’t going to learn that much more in a few months after riding for nearly 30 years. In one sense the more I trained on the bike, the more likely I was to injure myself so keeping it to a minimum was fine. I’ve just been working on keeping my weight down and staying healthy. I have a fairly relaxed style of riding which conserves energy but is fairly quick in the bush.

Ed: You mentioned you’ve been mostly doing desert racing. Is that how you came to know GHR Honda?

WS: I started doing the Finke Desert Race and some of the other cross-country events. I’ve been enjoying that style of racing and I can still be competitive in that sort of event at my age. I’ve had some good results in the Finke and some bad runs with mechanical issues on other brands when I was running up the front. But with my lifestyle being what it was I didn’t have a lot of time so I started using GHR for rental packages. I just picked the events that I wanted to do, and the Dakar has been one that I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I just decided hell or high water I was going to do it in 2011. I did the Safari with GHR in ’08 and it was just a fantastic ride, such a good team and was so well organised. When it came down to it I just said to Glenn “I want to do Dakar, you have to do it”.

Ed: For your average rider the Dakar is a pretty daunting proposition. When did you come to that decision?

WS: Probably March or April of 2010. I did think about doing it last year but work commitments got in the way. By March this year I hadn’t ridden for a few months and was feeling pretty miserable. I worked out what was missing – it was racing. I needed to get back on the bike so I called Glenn Hoffmann and said “Glenn, I want to do the Safari and I want to do the Dakar”. He put together a package for rental and support in both events, and I made the commitment. I suppose with Dakar too, because it’s such an expensive event, not a lot of people have the financial capacity to go do it. I guess I’m very lucky that my business has been so successful and has therefore allowed me to do it. That’s the biggest hurdle for most people There are plenty of local riders who would do really well in the Dakar, but they need a lot of extra support to get there.

Ed: What you’re planning to do on your end of year break is quite something. How did you explain it all to you business colleagues?

WS: I said sack me please! (laughs…) I just said like it or not, I am going.

Ed: What are you expecting from the event?

WS: We all have to treat this one as a learning experience. We do have a lot to contend with – the language differences for example. I want to finish in a respectable position. But I want us all to finish. It doesn’t matter how fast you are if you don’t finish. I’m also looking to take a supportive role for Jacob – I won’t hesitate to help him if I can. I’m looking forward to it – this is going to be a great experience for all of us.

Ed: You’ve implied this is not going to be the one and only Dakar you ever do…

WS: No. Definitely not. I’ve come to realise that bikes are a big part of my life and something I have always been involved in. When you have been riding as long as I have it’s pretty hard to give up. To be honest, most who do give it up do so because they don’t have the self discipline to stay in shape. They take the easier route and go racing on 4 wheels. Most would still ride if they had the fitness to do it. I’m pretty strict about how I look after myself. I’ve had a few hurdles along the way though. I had leukaemia and got through it. Keeping in shape is very important, so I know that if I continue to look after myself I’ll be able to keep riding. Something else too – when you meet the people who have been in the game this long, they’re all very level headed people. It’s interesting. There are few ratbags in the racing game, but the people who stick with it are generally good people. We met people racing motocross years ago and they are still really good friends. I’m glad I am part of what’s happening.

Ed: Thanks again for you’re time and I’ll leave you to the rest of your packing.

WS: Bags are already packed. I actually don’t know what to do know other than kill some time until the plane takes off on the 22nd. I do have to do go buy some jocks though!