Gavin Foster MOTOCROSS
Two KwaZulu-Natal teenagers have swapped the calmness of the classroom for the hurly-burly of world championship motocross racing. Grant Langston (17) goes into his third year of grand prix (GP) competition with a very good chance of winning fame and fortune, while 15- year-old Jarrett de Jager leaves for Europe next week to prepare for his first full season at the highest level of competition.
“Lots of people have told me I’ve made a mistake,” says Langston, “but you have to look at the way sport’s going these days – people start younger and younger. Because motocross is such a physical sport your professional career is over pretty early, so if you wait to finish your schooling before going to Europe you’ve missed the boat already.”
By the time he celebrates his 21st birthday Langston should be, if not the champion, entrenched as a consistent front-runner. “For my age I’m definitely the fastest rider in the world at the moment, so I have an advantage, because some of the older top riders will be retiring in a year or two.”
What sounds like arrogance in a youngster not yet old enough to drive the car he won last year, is purely a bold statement of fact. In 1998 Langston, then 15, campaigning in his first season of GPs, finished 35th in the world championship. Last year he came back after missing two mid-season races through injury and stunned the motocross world by winning both heats of the German 125cc Grand Prix in August. The 40 points he earned there, along with those scored earlier in the year were enough to slot him into 10th place at the end of the season.
He also clinched the Dutch national championship and won the only event in the French championship that he contested.
Soon after his German win Langston started receiving job offers for 2000, and this year he jets off to Europe as a fully professional works rider on an Austrian KTM bike, earning a salary, bonuses and excellent start money for every event he contests.
But for De Jager there’s still lots of work to be done before he can expect to bring home the bacon. The Durban youngster was offered a ride for three grands prix in 1999, and made the most of his opportunity. “I’d just finished standard six [grade eight] in 1998, and I never went back to school,” he says. His credentials were impeccable – after winning South African 80cc and 125cc high school titles De Jager, then just 13 years old, was granted a special dispensation to compete in the senior class of the national championships, against riders twice his age. He ended the 1999 season as runner-up to multiple South African champion, veteran Ryan Hunt.
Although he finished well down the field in the grand prix he contested, De Jager did well enough in Europe for Suzuki Belgium to offer him a berth in their 2000 campaign. His new bike, though not as fast as the top works machines, will be at least as good as the rest of the privateers’ motorcycles. Apart from the grands prix, he’ll contest the Dutch and Belgian national championships to gain European experience. And experience under local conditions is what he needs – the sandy courses are very different to the hard tracks the South Africans are used to, and the competition’s in a different league to South African racing. “It’s like racing Ryan Hunt all the time,” he says ruefully, “except there’s 40 of him!”
What happens when the racing’s over, the youngsters’ dreams either realised or destroyed? Will they find themselves uneducated and unemployable? Not necessarily.
Grand prix racing is a profession, and with talent, dedication, careful planning and a bit of luck riders can retire by the age of 30 with a fair amount of loot in the bank. As a rider’s rankings rise so does the amount of start money he can demand.
“The top 20 competitors in each GP class can make a fair living,” says Langston. “The first 10 make very good money, and the top three make millions.” A win in a national championship event in Europe could be worth R15E000 and a grand prix win R40E000 after tax in prize money alone.
“It’s not just about being world champion, you know,” says Johan de Jager, Jarrett’s father. “If he can run regularly in the top 10 in GPs he can make very good money for the next 15 years. He must see it as a business, though. I can name a lot of world champions who have no money, and plenty of top five finishers who have lots. I don’t think we’ve made a mistake. He has the talent – he just has to pull finger and he can shape.”
Grant Langston’s father, Gerald, agrees that those with the talent have to make an early start if they want to be world championship contenders. “Nowadays sportsmen are getting younger and younger, and if you wait until you’re 18 before you make your break it’s too late. Somewhere along the line, if you have the talent you have to make the decision whether you should quit school or not.”
The trick lies in knowing the difference between pipe dreams and potential. “Parents sometimes think their kids have what it takes and pull them out of school. That’s happening far too often, these days, and some of them are going to bomb out badly,” says Gerald Langston.
Grant Langston’s earned the respect of his peers, and the future looks rosy. What about De Jager? “I think he’s one of the few South Africans capable of becoming a top GP rider,” says Langston, who knows just how tough it is to break into grand prix racing.
“There are a couple of others with potential, but you never can tell. Some guys are unbelievably fast, but when they get to Europe they get injured, or they allow themselves to be intimidated, they get homesick, and it just doesn’t work out. Others who are only reasonably good in their home countries surprise everybody by doing much better in GPs than expected.”
The Spanish Grand Prix on March 26 is the first event in the 2000 world championships
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