Australia's Green Ant On The March

The Sunday Age

Sunday October 14, 2007

Rod Curtis

Earlier this year, Ant West was in the red and had given up his grand prix dream.

Then Kawasaki called, and now he's sitting pretty in green, Rod Curtis reports.

WHEN Ant West answered the phone in June this year to hear his bank manager's voice, he knew it was trouble."

The bank called saying I owed them money. They're like, 'Anthony, we need some money', and I had nothing at all ... I couldn't afford to go to any more races, I didn't have enough money to fly home to Australia, so I didn't know what I was going to do."

After eight years struggling to survive on the 125 and 250cc MotoGP circuit, after his father - a plumber - had ploughed hundreds of thousands of dollars into his career, and after consistently strong results had consistently seen younger, richer riders with bigger sponsorships get signed before him, the 26-year-old West hung up the phone at his home in Salzburg, Austria, realising his MotoGP dream was over."

I'd never wanted to go and ride superbikes because for me it's not grand prix, not the top level, and I'd tried so hard to stay there, and in the end, I couldn't afford to any more."

He felt the worst for his dad."

Without my dad I wouldn't have been able to race at all. He's a plumber, and he's still working paying it all off and he should have been retired years ago. It was the worst."

Then the phone rang again. It was a Yamaha contact in the ultracompetitive world supersport championship, asking him if he would replace an injured rider on their 600cc machine."

I said, 'I'd love to, but I can't even afford to turn up', so they paid me to come, and I had some good races (he was third in his first start, in Monza, then won at both Silverstone and Misano), and I thought, 'OK, it feels better when you're winning', and I was going to stay there."

Then the phone rang a third time.

Kawasaki had seen his victories, and were keen to test West. "It was a Sunday night, they rang and said, 'So, do you want to ride the Kawasaki tomorrow?' "And I'm like, 'What?' I seriously thought they were just joking, but I ended up doing some laps, and they were impressed with how I went."

So impressed they signed him up to ride the factory Ninja ZX-RR in MotoGP for the rest of this year, then signed him as one of two factory riders for 2008. A month after rockbottom, West was flying. The first thing he did was painted the No. 13 on the front of his green machine - his dad's birthday."

It's a dream come true, it's what I've been working for. It's been a hard road but I've got a lot of experience, I know what to expect, I know what it takes to win races."

Five-time world champion Mick Doohan agrees that West was a victim of "the age-old problem of being Australian and not having the millions of Euros required - he certainly wasn't getting the help that others have got".

But Doohan believes West can carve out a niche in MotoGP. "The kid has got talent. He's done the hard yards, he's kicked the door open at Kawasaki and I think he's going to have some good results."

As a kid, West rode a Kawasaki K100 dirt bike. Now he's sitting in the Kawasaki corporate tent at Phillip Island, dressed in the team's green, surrounded by back-slappers and autograph hunters.

And the Queenslander with the shock of blond hair, omnipresent white wraparound sunglasses and surfer's drawl, is, in surfing terms, stoked."It's the first time I've actually signed a contract before Christmas, I can't wait to get into testing this year and really get the bike set up for myself and develop it so we can go faster next year. It's crucial - in testing you probably do more laps than you do in a whole race season."

West has been left dumbstruck by the differences of riding for a factory team. "Everyone's professional, everyone knows what they're doing on the bike, the bike is always good to ride." Is it the best bike he's ever ridden? "Of course," he says, laughing at the question."

It's MotoGP, you can't even compare it.

They're just wild, like, really nice to ride, but lots and lots of power. You can actually ride it right on the throttle and slide the bike around."

West slides around more than most - a nod to his early dirt-biking days.

Raised in Harvey Bay, then the Gold Coast, West raced dirt bikes throughout his childhood before graduating to the bitumen at 15. Those years in the dirt also help to keep him upright in the wet, and West has become known in the industry as "Rain Man" for his prowess on slippery tracks. It's a term that doesn't sit well."

That Rain Man thing's really starting to give me the shits. I'd never had good machinery to do good in the dry. People still say, 'Oh, are you glad it's raining?' I'm like, 'No, I hate riding in the rain', especially here, when it's so cold. Today, I couldn't feel what the brake lever's doing or what I was doing with the throttle because my hands were numb."

West isn't tall, but has a footballer's build, and the muscled hands of a carpenter. His left hand is wrapped in tape, the legacy of an old Phillip Island injury, where he crashed on the fast first corner. "It doesn't bother me riding," he said, "but I just tape it up anyway because I've still got all the plates and screws in it."

It certainly won't bother him today, as he sits in 10th place on the grid at his home grand prix. What will he be thinking? "I'll be working out how I can win the thing." He laughs, but after the ride he's had, you suspect he's not joking.

© 2007 The Sunday Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home